


My Babysitters a Wizard??

by ghost_bitch



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Babysitting, Cooking, F/M, Gunshot Wounds, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Injuries, Misunderstandings, Mystery, Parent Trap shenanigans, Rescue Missions, like emotionaly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-03-02 08:17:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18807280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghost_bitch/pseuds/ghost_bitch
Summary: Taako, a disgraced former cooking show host, is now having trouble finding work thanks to his most profitable skill being useless. Until he sees a poster for a personal babysitter that pays pretty damn well... and his new boss is pretty fine too...After Angus deduced that his former babysitters were sadistic torturers, he has been trying to convince his dad that he can handle himself, to no avail. He was sure that this next babysitter would be a boring type, but he seems to be hiding something, not to mention that his dad seems to have fallen head over heels for him...Kravitz just wanted to be able to go to work without worrying about his sons safety. Was that too much to ask? First it was murderers, and now it was an extremely hot guy who seemed to have it out for his heart rate. Not to mention that Angus seems to get himself involved in every event of his love life...





	1. A Job Prospect and A Helicopter Parent

Taako is on the subway, as he often is when he is too tired or too far away to walk home when he sees it. A flyer with a brightly colored advertisement of a family looking for a personal babysitter. At first his eyes skimmed over it, brain still on other things, but then he came back to it, considering the idea in spite of himself.  
He was not good with kids, he reasoned with himself, no way.  
But… the idea of a job was sounding real good right about now. He took a moment to weigh the pros and cons in his head, probably getting some weird looks from neighboring passengers on the Rockport Subway.  
Pros:  
1\. This was a really well made poster, and they were in multiple places, meaning that his family was R-I-C-H. And a personal babysitter, they must be loaded, and handing out good salaries to boot.  
2\. Its not like he doesn't have the free time. Something to do would be awesome for a change. 

Cons:  
1\. If he killed this rich family’s brat then he would be thrown in jail for sure, and Lup would kill him… along with the rest of his motley crew.  
2\. He doesn't know anything about kids! He is definitely a people person, and has no problem buttering up a crowd, but one person? One not-yet-fully-developed-person? Nooo thank you! Taakos good out here! 

Damn, he thinks to himself. Two pros and two cons. Even footing. He leans over to the tired looking businessman next to him.  
“You got a coin I can flip, hot stuff?” 

 

000

“I don't need a babysitter! I'm the greatest detective in the world!” Angus cried indignantly.  
Kravitz finished buttoning his sons shirt and looked at him wearily, the way that said that they have had this conversation many, many times.  
“Regardless, kiddo, you are ten years old. You need adult supervision while I'm at work.” Kravitz says, weariness not outweighing gentleness while talking to his son.  
Angus sighs and relents, knowing that he will not win this battle.  
“So are you gonna hire wanted criminals this time?” Angus asks, feigning casual conversation. Kravitz glares at him from the door, where he is putting on his suit jacket.  
“Hey even the cops didn't know those two were torturers. Lydia and Edward seemed like very nice people when I hired them.” Kravitz said, a little embarrassed.  
“But I deduced through their horseshit.” Angus said proudly.  
“Don't say horseshit.” Kravitz said distractedly, mind clearly on other things. Angus decided to give his dad a break from the teasing and stood next to him.  
“Whats wrong?” Angus asked, worried for why his dad was acting so out of it.  
“You know I don't like leaving you alone, I hate having to go into work while you're here.” Kravitz sighed. Angus hugged his dad around the legs (his dad was very tall).  
“I'm gonna be fine. I have all the phone numbers.” Angus mumbled into his dads pant leg. He felt Kravitz ruffle his hair, even if his eyes were still obscured by fancy black fabric.  
“I know.” Kravitz suddenly jumped, having just looked at his watch. “Ah shit! Don't repeat that! I have to go, bud, I'm late already! I'll see you at eight o’clock! If I'm even twenty minutes late call me to make sure you don't have to stay at Grandma Raven’s for the night! There's a knife by the door, don't use it unless you have to! Dinner is microwaveable so you-” His dad carried on as Angus pushed him out the door.  
“I love you!” Angus yelled. “Have a good day at work!” And slammed the door on his dad.  
“I love you too!” He heard the muffled yell from the door.  
Angus turned towards the house. 

Today he was going to prove himself. 

000 

Kravitz wasn't getting a lot done today. He was worried about Angus and that was his biggest distraction. He was just getting started on half-heartedly writing an email to a colleague when he got a text.  
Kravitz grabbed for his phone desperately, worried that it might be Angus texting to tell him that something was wrong. To his relief, and a bit of disappointment, it was not Angus texting him, it was an unknown number. 

Unknown Caller ID: hey  
Unknown Caller ID: saw your poster on the subway. You still hiring?

Kravitz was struck by the unprofessional nature of someone texting to ask for a job, but quickly responded anyway, eager to get his mind off of any of the million things that could go wrong with his son alone. 

You: Yes, we are. Are you interested in applying?  
Unknown Caller ID: heeck yeah bro. im super greattiwth kidsss  
You: May I ask for your name so I can put you in my contacts?  
Unknown Caller ID: only if i can ask for yours lmao ;)  
Unknown Caller ID: wait nvm you could be like,,,married or a creep,,

Kravitz cannot help himself from chortling a bit at that.

You: My name is Kravitz.  
Unknown Caller ID: Taako  
Taako: and oooo doesn't sound like an old creep name ;)  
You: Yes I can promise I am neither. Haha.  
Taako: yikesssss dude.  
You: What is it?  
Taako: you can't jsut type haha you have to liek… keysmash or smtg  
You: Can you...explain what that is?

 

Kravitz ends up texting Taako all day, and is shocked when he looks at the clock and realizes that its time for him to leave. He texts a quick goodbye to Taako and swings his bag over his shoulder, hoping that no one would notice the fact the he got next to nothing done today. 

000

The moment he pushes the door to his house open, he knows that he should have called in sick. There is the distinct smell of something burning in the air, and the living room looks like it was ravished by a hurricane. Kravitz sighs and calls for Angus, who climbs sheepishly out of a poorly constructed pillow fort.  
“I left you a microwave dinner. Why did you cook for yourself?” Kravitz makes sure no anger is in his voice, however annoyed he may be.  
“I've been wanting to learn to cook for a while…” Angus says, wringing his hands together nervously. “And since you can't really cook, I've just been trying to teach myself?”  
Kravitz sighs.  
“Bud, if you wanted to learn how to cook you should have told me. You can cook for yourself if you want, but please only do it while an adult is here. I really don't want you to start a fire or anything like that.”  
Angus nods, agreeable as always, and they both clean up the destroyed house before turning in to bed, Kravitz sitting on the plushy chair next to Angus’s bed and reading another chapter of the novel that he loved to pieces, the well loved book nearly coming apart in Kravitz’s hands. 

Before Kravitz leaves the room, he realizes that he forgot to tell Angus about the man who had been texting him.  
“Oh! Angus!” Kravitz says suddenly. Angus gives a sleepy hum of a question. “There's someone coming in to apply to be your babysitter tomorrow morning, so try to be on your best behavior!” 

As Kravitz shuts the door, he swears he can see the beginnings of a mischievous smile on Angus’ face.


	2. Two late starts and a meeting

Taako wakes up to the sunlight and a deep breath, a welcome change from the feverish dreams that woke him so often. The morning felt slow, so Taako had no issue with lying in bed for a few more minutes.  
Eventually, he grew bored with languishing in his plush bedsheets and rolled out of the Taako-shaped indent in the mattress, stretching and walking downstairs, where he could already smell his sister cooking some simple breakfast. The smell pained him, delicious as it was, and he quickly clamped down on the memories that surfaced at the smell, instead choosing to waltz into the kitchen with all the flair and pizzaz he could muster after having just crawled out of his darkened room to greet his sister and brother-in-law.  
Everyone is still relatively sleepy, so the reception to his dramatics is lackluster at best. Barry yawns into the back of his hand as he greets Taako and chops vegetables at the same time.  
Taako notices some trashy reality television playing on the large tv against the main wall, and nearly settles in to catch the tail-end of the catfight happening on screen before he goes ramrod straight with realization.   
He had a job interview this morning.   
Fucccckkkkkkkkk. Fuck. Fuck shit.   
Piss.   
Taako continues this mental string of curses as he rushes around the room, trying to pull his outfit together out of thin air. A cursory glance at the clock told him that it was 9:30, thirty minutes before he had to be at the address that Kravitz had texted him.   
And it was a twenty minute run to that side of town…  
Fuckkkkk.

000

Well, like he always had before, Taako handled the situation with grace and charm (ignoring the constant string of curses that came out of his mouth during) and had gotten ready for his interview so fast that to the untrained eye it may have looked like magic.  
Now he was running, blatantly ignoring the snow that whipped against his face, and pulled his huge scarf over his nose in an attempt to avoid any of the harsh ice that lashed at him.   
He luckily only slipped a couple of times and thanked some non-specific god for his strange proficiency in acrobatics. 

All in all, he ends up in front of a huge, heavy-looking door with a few minutes to catch his breath. 

Those minutes were cut short by the door swinging open and a small boy looking up at him curiously. Taako pulled his scarf away from his mouth and smiled, thankfully not noticing any recognition on the boys face.   
“Hi. You must be Taako! My dad said that you're here to apply to be my babysitter?” The boy says, looking at him in a slightly suspicious way that makes Taako’s skin crawl, but only for a moment.   
“Heck yeah, little man,” Taako says, crouching down to be at the kids level. “I'm Taako, and I'm the coolest guy you'll ever meet!”  
The boy’s lips seem to twitch upward at this, which Taako counts as a victory for him.   
“So uhhhh… where’s your pops, kid? Can't have an interview without a boss.” Taako says easily as he walks inside of the sunroom, shrugging off his scarf and hanging it on a fancy-ass clawed hook before wiping the snow off of his boots, careful not to track it on the shiny floors.   
“I… don't actually know? He might be asleep still? Hold on.” The kid rushes out of the room and shouts for his dad, and Taako leans back and takes a deep breath, taking a look at the decoration fo the house.   
‘Fuck,’ he thinks, taking in the tapestry of a raven and a dove circling each other that serves as the main decoration for this entry room, and he smiles, ‘some sort of goth must live here.’

This suspicion is proven correct a few minutes later when a man runs into the room, falling back a bit as he slips on the polished floor. Taako moves forward instinctively to catch him, but the man who he assumes must be Kravitz saves them both the embarrassment by catching himself on an opposing wall, and Taako relaxes.   
Kravitz smilies at Taako a little sheepishly and Taako has a realization.  
This guy is not only rich, but he is cute.   
Very cute.   
Taako carefully schools his expression and makes sure he is not blushing (he isn't) and puts on his best crowd-pleasing smile.   
“You must be Kravitz.” He says breezily, holding out a hand for him to shake.  
Kravitz stares at him for a moment, face flushed in what Taako has to assume is a residual embarrassment at almost eating shit as a first impression. He eventually does stop staring, though and takes his hand to shake. Taako nearly jerks away in shock because fuck! This guy has got cold hands!

000

Kravitz woke up ten minutes before the new applicant was supposed to arrive, groggily looking at the clock, making a noise somewhere between a wheeze and a shout, then shooting out of bed to get dressed and make himself look presentable for this first impression.   
He is about to put on his shoes when he hears Angus shout from downstairs that Taako is at the door and decides to forgo shoes entirely, rushing down the stairs and thanking himself for putting a carpet over the stairs to save himself from biting it while running in socks. 

Now, Kravitz would like to say that he handled this first meeting with elegance and professionalism… but he will admit that he almost fell on his ass the moment the other man came into sight.   
He manages to catch himself (thank God) and smiles up at the man in the doorway, hoping that friendliness can overwrite his embarrassment.   
The moment he makes eye contact, though, all bets of saving this interaction are out.   
He's pretty.  
Like, really pretty. 

Kravitz is sure he is blushing and hopes its only because he nearly busted his ass in the first two seconds of meeting a possible new employee.   
Angus is not fooled, as he never is, by his father's attempt to hide his emotions, and shoots him a sly grin that has Kravitz’s heart drop. He gives Angus a look that he chooses to ignore. He turns to Taako, bouncing on his heels nonchalantly.  
“Gee, you look a little flushed Mr. Taako! Are you alright?”   
Kravitz glares at his son in what he hopes is discreet enough that Taako doesn't notice, and Taako huffs a laugh.  
“No such thing babe. I walked here, and its cold as bal- as heck out there.” He said leisurely, hanging up his coat and scarf, now only in a tight button-down shirt and a black pencil skirt, which Kravitz thinks is wildly inappropriate for the weather, until he notices the thick but nearly unnoticable stockings on his legs.   
Kravitz realizes that he’s staring, and forcefully tears his eyes away from Taako’s frame. 

Kravitz leads Taako into the living room, where tea is already waiting, sits him down in one of the overstuffed chairs before shooing Angus out of the room and sitting down himself. 

They talk for a while about business, the salary that Kravitz pretends he doesn't see Taako’s jaw drop at. They then discuss Taako’s apparently unlimited skill set which Kravitz has the sneaking suspicion that he is leaving something out of.   
The conversation turns personal instead of businesslike, and they discuss each other’s lives, where Kravitz talks about his job at his mother’s funeral home which thankfully, Taako doesn't seem to be too put-off by, and Taako talks about his family, not much about any past work experiences though. 

Taako finishes his long-cold tea and stands up, smiling at Kravitz.   
“This has been awesome, but I bet a hot guy like you has plenty of dashing young men at your door, trying to babysit your kid,” Taako says, patting a hand on his shoulder.   
Kravitz is glad that he doesn't process that Taako called him hot until Taako has completely turned away from him and does not bear witness to his flustered state. 

Taako is standing in the doorway, chatting with Angus, who actually seems to be getting along with him, while Kravitz weighs his options.   
Honestly, this man probably isn't the best choice for a babysitter, but… for whatever reason, Kravitz really thinks that this is meant to be or something. He's never been a huge believer in fate, but he may have to go back on that rule of thumb if it meant having this man in his life.   
He thinks this must be something like divine intervention.   
He wants to talk to him, to be around him. He wants to… 

Oh.  
Oh no.

Angus waves goodbye and closes the door before turning back to his dad with a smug look as he watches his dad buries his face in his hands and let out a groan that borders on a scream.   
He has a crush.   
“So… I'm guessing he's getting a callback?” Angus teases.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading as always! Please comment I eat them for fuel (and might respond if I can think of somthing to say, but even if I dont I still really appreciate it!)


	3. First Day On the Job

It was Taakos first day of work, and to even his own surprise, he was excited. He didn't know if it was because of the hefty paycheck or because of his cute boss. Maybe even the exceptionally smart kid would be cool to hang around.   
Taako furrowed his eyebrows as he brushed the sleep tangles out of his hair. Optimism wasn't really his thing. What had changed?   
This line of thought was cut off by his door flying open and Lup throwing herself into the room. Anyone else in his position may have startled enough to pull a lock of hair out with the brush, but not him. His sister was famously loud, as a demolition expert, and it was something that he had gotten used to very quickly. Still, though, he glared at his sister and her stupid smug face.   
“You couldn't knock? I could have been naked!” Taako shouted, which Lup only graced with an eye roll.   
“Right… because I've never seen you naked before.” Lup drawled. Taako shrieked indignantly and threw a pillow, which, quite satisfyingly, hit her squarely in the face. 

He leaves with the well wishes of his family behind him, and walked at a satisfyingly leisurely pace as he has the time to waste on walking instead of running. He arrives at the large home and takes a breath, enjoying the feeling of not being sweaty as he pushes open the door.  
The moment he looks inside all sense of peace is broken, and his instincts of living with a pyromaniac his whole life kicks in as he smells the very distinct smell of burning. He rushes into the kitchen, pulling out a plastic package that may be mistaken for a sauce packet that he snagged from a nearby Wendy's, until he tears it open and upends it onto the steadily growing kitchen fire that has engulfed the waffle iron.   
He makes sure it is properly put out and turns to the two people who he has to assume started this mess, who are huddled in the corner away from the fire, staring at him with relief.   
He throws his hair back, trying to look as casual as possible.   
“So… which one of you is the arsonist?” He asks teasingly.   
Angus looks to his dad pointedly and Kravitz sheepishly raises his hand. Taako laughs and sets the destroyed waffle iron in the sink while the other two get up from the kitchen floor and dust themselves off. 

After several minutes of thank-yous, Kravitz takes his leave and for the first time, Taako is alone with Angus. It is that moment when he realizes that he doesn't have the foggiest clue on how to keep kids entertained. Dogs sure, spending half his life around Magnus will keep him very used to dogs. 

After around twenty minutes of debate, Taako ends up on his hands and knees, pawing through the extensive movie collection below the tv while Angus flips through a thick book.   
Angus had requested a mystery movie, and Taako triumphantly threw up his hands, one of which was holding the dvd box for Holes, which Angus confirms he had not seen before. 

Turns out, the movie itself was good, but Angus figured out who the culprit was only fifteen minutes into the movie, making the big twist less satisfying then it would have been.   
The movie ends, and they sit in awkward silence again, still trying to get a read on each others personality. After the quiet got too painful to bear without something to break the ice, Taako finally spoke.   
“Hide and Find!” He blurted out. Angus look at him, bewildered.   
“Do you mean hide and seek?” He asks, furrowing his brows. Taako stands, stretches, and shakes his head.   
“No way babe, Taako doesn't give up.”   
Angus laughs and accepts Taakos offer. 

Taako ends up losing a game of rock paper scissors, and has to hide first.   
Taako is fairly confident about this game, as he has always been pretty incredible at hiding thanks to his rough childhood.   
He looks around the room for a decent place that a ten year old wouldn't look. Eventually, his eyes land on the thick wooden beams that ran over the ceiling, leaving about a foot of space between them and the ceiling. He smiles deviously and resolves to put his acrobatics to good use.  
With far too much showiness for someone without an audience, Taako makes his way up to the rafters and settles down, making himself small and quieting his breathing. 

Two minutes later, Taako is pouting while Angus laughs, chest puffing up with pride at his accomplishments.   
“Its not like its your fault, Mr. Taako. I am the best at Hide and Seek!”  
Taako snorts, and immediately challenges him to another round, with Angus hiding this time. Angus agrees, and allows Taako to cover his eyes and count for two minutes. 

When the two minutes are up and Taako pulls his hands away from his eyes, Angus is gone, and a cursory search around the main room does not reveal him.

Forty minutes go by, and Angus eventually gets bored and comes out of his hiding place, the drier, which Taako scolds him for and then promptly excuses his loss by reasoning that Angus knew the house much better than him.   
“Well I know that's not true! I'm the world's greatest detective.”   
Despite the kids cheerful, and slightly teasing tone, Taako’s bouncy walk slows to a nearly complete stop, and Taako feels his mind leave him as the kid asks him a series of concerned questions.   
000  
After the incident at Glamour Springs, Taako considered running away. Far away. Before the cops even arrived to the scene.   
He didn't count on his sister, though, and the fact that she somehow arrived much, much more quickly than the police, apparently mishearing the news and thinking that he had been poisoned. Her relief at finding her brother did not last long, as he was near catatonic in the back of his stagecoach, head in his hands.   
000  
He was pardoned, and the jury found him innocent on the grounds of foul play being suspected. Taako opened his mouth to disagree, allow the self loathing and grief that had been festering in his mind to spill over into real space. A worried look from his sister silenced him. 

He walked free. 

000

 

Taako manages to shake himself out of the memory, reassures himself that this kid would not find out who he was, no matter how good he said he was, and waves off the kids concerns, instead choosing to look to the wall mounted clock, styled after a grandfather clock and completely parallel to the clock in his kitchen ( One of those black cat clocks with the swinging tails? You know.) and sees that it is around noon, which calls for Taako to start making lunch. Taako’s stomach drops, and he holds his hands by his side to stop them from shaking.   
“Lunch time! A-any requests, little man?” He asks with all his usual splendor, trying not to let the kid notice how uncomfortable he was.   
“Waffles!” Angus cheered, before frowning. “Oh wait…”   
Taako chuckes. “That would work, except for the fact that the waffle iron is half melted in the sink.”   
Angus frowns and Taako releases a long suffering sigh.   
“Fine! We can compromise. How do you feel about pancakes?” Taako asks flippantly.   
Angus smiles and goes to get the aprons out of the drawer.

000

After forty minutes and what must have been at least a dozen and a half dropped eggs, Taako set down the plate of immaculate pancakes on the table, and stared at them in concern.   
“What's wrong sir?” Angus asks, clearly eager to eat.   
“I- I cant -” Taako takes a deep breath. “Everyone knows the chef gets to take the first bite.”   
Angus furrows his eyebrows.   
“I've never heard that before…” Angus says, unsure. Taako flips his hair over his shoulder.   
“Well you've heard it now.”`Says Taako, taking a chunk off of the stack and eating it.   
He chews and swallows, and when nothing happens, he sighs in relief and shoves the plate towards Angus, who accepts it gratefully and starts eating. 

Taako watches him intently, and when he finishes eating and stands up to find something else to do to pass the time until his dad gets home.   
“What do you want to do now, little man?” Taako asks, stretching once again. “Another movie? Trash Tv?”  
Angus shook his head.   
“Would you practice dealing with hysterical victims with me, it'll be good practice for when I'm a detective.”  
Taako laughs. “Hysterical! That's something I can do!”

000 

They end up raiding an extensive costume closet upstairs, and Angus sits at kitchen table in an oversized trench coat that hangs over his shoes, and a deerstalker hat that fell over his eyes and forced him to keep adjusting it.   
Taako threw open the living room door with all the grandiose he could muster, his recently applied eyeliner had been carefully smeared to make it appear that he had recently had a breakdown, and a funeral veil and long black dress clung to his form. His most dramatic accessory being the huge white boa that hid the lower half of his face and almost certainly got feathers in his mouth every time he opened it.  
“Detective!” He wailed, throwing himself over the kitchen table in mock distress. “There has been a horrible tragedy!”  
“Ah! A tragedy you say?” Angus says in a falsely deep voice that nearly has Taako rolling. “Well, sir, why don't you tell me what you know.” 

Taako was suddenly glad for the improv classes he took in high school, and immediately gets to work spinning a story off the top of his head.   
“Well you see, detective Angus,” Taako said, still his terrible New York accent. “My poor sister, she's missing!” He takes this moment to let out a very convincing wail before continuing. “She went on a mission to hide… our family heirloom! The Phoenix Fire Glove!”   
Angus hesitates at the strangeness of the item.  
“Your sister was hiding a glove?” Angus asks incredulously, a small smile on his face.  
“Its a very good oven mitt. Shut up and let me weave my tragic tale.” 

000

Its a good twenty minutes before Taako finishes his story about his sister and her efforts to hide a jewel encrusted oven mitt, and it ends with an extensive explanation about how him and his college roommates got jobs on the moon.   
“Well that was… unnecessarily complicated, I won't lie.” Angus says, squinting down at the notes that he had been taking throughout all of Taako’s improvised story.   
Taako shrugged, leaning back in his chair.   
“No good riddles are simple, boy chic.” 

000

As it turns out, Angus solves Taako’s riddle fairly quickly. (And yes, it did have an answer.)   
His sister was a ghost and was trapped in an umbrella or something. Honestly, Taako lost the plot around the time that his sisters husband died like eight times. 

000

Kravitz is nervous. Actually, to say that Kravitz is nervous is a gross understatement. He practically has to be held down to prevent him from calling his son every ten minutes.   
He likes Taako, he really does, but any parent would be nervous about leaving their kid with who is essentially a stranger. Even if that stranger was really cute. And had the most unnaturally fluffy hair. And such an enchanting laugh.   
Kravitz buries his face in his hands the moment he catches himself daydreaming about his sons babysitter, and sighs deeply, looking at the clock.   
Only a few more hours. 

000

As it turns out, Kravitz was worried for nothing, he decides as he walks into his house later that afternoon.  
Taako and Angus are engaged in what looks like an aggressive round of charades, and Kravitz’s eyes sweep over Angus. Watching his sons movements, he immediately guesses the action.

“Magic.” He says, and both people in the room look to him. Angus cheers and runs over to hug his leg, while Taako takes the much more casual approach of walking over with his hands in his pockets while Kravitz desperately tries to keep his mind away from thinking that he certainly wanted a hug from Taako too.   
Taako says goodbye to both of them, and starts to put on his coat. Glancing outside at the setting sun, a thousand bad possibilities run through his head, and before he can think, Kravitz blurts out: “Can I give you a ride?”   
Taako looks at him in confusion for a moment, and Kravitz hurriedly backtracks.  
“I- I just mean- it’s cold out! And getting dark, anything can happen. It would just be safer, and I certainly don't mind.”   
Despite Kravitz’s awkward stumbling through the sentence, Taako shrugs and pulls on his scarf.   
“You won't hear any complaints about a free ride from me, homie.” 

000

The drive to Taako’s house is...awkward. Kravitz is a big enough person to admit that this awkward silence is likely his fault. He is a bit too nervous to make conversation right now, and is honestly kind of flustered to have this man in his passenger seat.   
Thankfully, the car ride isn't very long, a few minutes at best, and Kravitz drops Taako off, watching him until he gets inside to make sure he didn't like, slip or something.   
Kravitz hesitates for a moment once he gets inside though, adjusting the knob on the radio, and catches sight of Taako in the kitchen window, walking towards a heavyset man in a white shirt and glasses who is furrowing his eyebrows at a laptop that he appears to be furiously working on. Taako lifts his face towards his own and kisses him tenderly on the lips in greeting.   
Kravitz’s heart sinks, and he hates himself for it.   
Why had he assumed such a great person hadn't been seeing anyone? Why had he taken the selfish road and only thought about himself. Just because he never mentioned a significant other didn't mean that they didn't exist!  
Kravitz’s self-berating continued as he pulled out of the driveway and back towards his house.

000

Inside, Taako walks into the kitchen, and immediately is met with an eyeful of Lup and Barry making out at the kitchen table.   
He makes an obnoxiously loud retching noise and teases his sister and her husband for the next few minutes as he watches Kravitz’s car drive away. 

000

Somewhere, away from petty misunderstandings and make-believe, in another state, or another country, maybe, there are two people. A man and a woman. They are standing over the fallen form of a security guard of a high security prison. Their sharp heels click as they walk over cracked stone, and around the corpse of their keeper.   
They have a score to settle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading! Leave a comment or share with a friend who you think might like it and I'll send you 69 virtual coins of my own design. I'm calling them: bitchbucks.


	4. Resolutions and Realizations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please read notes at end for an announcement!!

If Taako was keeping track of time, which he was not, he would say that it has been around two weeks since he started his job at Kravitz’s house, and life had progressed as it always had.   
As Taako grabs a pomegranate off of a pile and inspects it, he ponders how things have shifted in the past two weeks.   
He has been getting more comfortable with cooking, for one thing, as he has to cook for Angus every day. There is no way he is letting a growing boy eat microwave dinners on his watch.   
It is still… hard for him. To watch someone eat something he made, and he often has to take a bite before the other person to assure that nothing is wrong with it. This is surely strange behavior to an outside observer, but it is the only thing that stops him from panicking every time he makes so much as a bowl of cereal.   
As he stares at his reflection in the waxy surface of the fruit he holds, he thinks back to one of the lowest moments in his life. 

He is hidden completely under a thick blanket, shaking, but not crying. He doesn't have the energy or water left in his body to cry anymore. He hears Lup open the door and take the untouched plate of food from his bedside table that she left there last night and sets another one down, a muffin and some fruit this time. Simple, light. Something he would have killed for when he was a kid.   
Thinking about eating it makes him want to be sick. 

He can hear the waver in Lup’s voice when she speaks and hates himself for it.   
“You have to eat. Please, it was an accident.” Lup says, near tears.   
Taako says nothing, simply because he feels that there is nothing worth saying in this moment.   
His sister, the woman he loves more than everyone, lies next to him, a barrier of heavy blankets still separating them, and she hugs his form, weeping. 

They lie like that for a while, until they are both under the covers and Taako finally feels well enough to sit up and take a couple bites from the muffin and a few sips of water.   
And when he coughs it up in the bathroom a few minutes later, Lup is there to hold his hair back while he retches. 

000

Taako blinks back into reality to the sound of someone shouting his name. He startles, and drops the pomegranate that he had been holding, but a dark hand reaches out and catches it before it can hit the dirty linoleum.   
He looks back up at the people to break him out of his reprieve, and sees Kravitz and Angus, both smiling at him.   
He smiles back, and takes the pomegranate back from Kravitz, sticking it in his handbasket.   
“Hello Mr.Taako! I didn't expect to see you here!” Angus greets him, clearly excited to see him, although Taako doesn't let it flatter him too much.   
“Well, what did you expect little man? I have a life outside of watching you.” He teases.   
Angus backtracks immediately, embarrassed.   
“Oh! I know that, sir! Of course you have your own life, I just-” Angus stutters nervously, before Taako cuts him off with an outstretched hand.   
“Calm down, homie. I was just messing with you.” Taako says leasurily, and Angus’s shoulders relax.   
Angus’s eyes roam over to the red basket in his hands, and his eyebrows furrow curiously.  
“What are you buying all this food for, sir?” He asks, absentmindedly adjusting his glasses. Taako shifts the basket to his other hands to relieve himself of the pain of the basket’s handle cutting into his hand.   
“Family dinner, babe. Gotta keep em’ fed so they don't go tearing my kitchen apart in search of junk food again.” Taako says, trying to keep his eyes off the kid’s dad while he was right in front of him. No kid watned to see their babysitter flirt with their parent.   
Angus looks confused for a moment, staring off into space as if he is trying to remember something someone said.  
“I thought you mentioned that you didn't have an extended family, sir?” Angus asks, and Kravitz jumps, elbowing his son softly.   
“Don't be rude!” Kravitz scolds gently, though he quiets when Taako brushes off his concerns with a wave of his hands.  
“No, no its fine. I just meant that I don't have family by blood, save for my sister. But you know what they say, ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” He says, eager to ease Kravitz’s concerns.   
Angus blinks in confusion.   
“Who says that?” He asks.   
“Me!” Taako says, pointing at himself with the hand that is not occupied by a basket filled with various foodstuffs. Angus laughs and they part ways, both heading to different aisles to find different things. 

000

Time passes, and he is due to start making dinner in a few hours when he gets a text from Kravitz.   
Kravitz(boss): Taako can you do me a favor?  
Taako: depends on what it is ;)   
Kravitz: Our power went out and I need to go to work tomorrow. Someone’s been embezzling money and I'm supposed to deal with it. Is it alright if Angus stays at your house tomorrow?   
Taako: yeah i don't realy giev a shit if i'm at my hosue or yours  
Taako: oh shit wait, i have famiy over tommorw. he can still come over, but they can be a rowdy bunch??   
Kravitz: That's fine, as long as none of them will hurt them.   
Taako: oh hell yeah homie. tehyre annoying an d loud, but they're not voilent   
Kravitz: I love that you used the proper ‘they're’ despite completely butchering the spelling.   
Taako: ty its a talent  
Kravitz: Are you sure that you don't mind? I don't want you to feel like you have to give up family time for me.  
Taako: plz, these jokes get enoguh of my time as it is.  
Kravitz: Alright, thank you so much! Ill drop him off around nine tomorrow.  
Taako: oh shit i forgot  
Taako: im probably also gonna be hungover  
Kravitz: I'm sure he knows what alcohol is, no worries.   
Taako: oh hell yeah your kid partys?  
Kravitz: …  
Taako: ;)

The conversation ends, and Taako promptly sticks his head out of his bedroom door and shouts out for his family to be on his best behavior tomorrow. He gets noises of confirmation, a couple of them already slightly slurred, and sets out to childproof his house. 

000

The next morning, Taako wakes up to a splitting headache and cottonmouth, and takes a moment to wonder what had woken him up when he so clearly needs to sleep more when the doorbell rings a second time, prompting a chorus of annoyed and tired groans throughout the house.   
Taako contemplates pretending to have died of alcohol poisoning to get out of watching Angus today, but eventually thinks better of it and drags himself out from under his weighted blanket and over to the front door, where Kravitz and Angus surely waited.   
When he reached the door, it was no great surprise to see Barry already at the door and talking cheerfully with the two of them. Barry had some strange superpower that made him immune to hangovers, much to the bitterness of the others in the house. Taako watched the conversation a few moments more, taking a second to weave his hair into braids so that he looked even slightly more presentable.   
As his fingers moved, he watched Kravitz’s face, and his strange avoidance of Barry’s eyes, the hunching of his shoulders. Taako rolled his eyes, not being able to imagine someone being intimidated by Barry, and walked forward, extending his arms in greeting, hoping that they didn't find his pyjamas, boxer shorts and a bloodstained band tee-shirt that he had regretfully forgotten to change out of after Merle attempted a backflip and gained a bloody nose for his efforts, wasn't too off-putting. 

It doesn't seem to be, thankfully, and Angus rushes forward to hug his legs the moment he sees him, and Kravitz’s eyes light up as his face breaks into a smile. Taako keeps his eyes on Kravitz’s face as his eyes dart to Barry, and his smile, while not fading, becomes far more constrained, and the light in his eyes dies out to something more professional.   
After this strange display, Kravitz awkwardly bid them goodbye and gave his son a hug before departing for work. 

Taako led Angus inside while Barry departed with two mugs of coffee to wake Lup up with something other than a headache.  
“Hey wild boys! Keep your bullshit to a downlow!” Taako shouts to the lumps that lay on the carpet in vaguely humanoid shapes under blankets. ”We've got a kid in the house today, you don't want to taint his innocent mind with boner jokes!”   
He gets groans of confirmation, though they clearly werent listening too clearly to his instructions. Taako sighs and begins walking again, before stopping in place, seemingly realizing his blunder. He looks to Angus with an awkward smile.   
“Hey, here's a deal for you, kiddo. If you don't tell your dad about us swearing, I'll let you say fuck.”

Angus takes the deal, in the end, and they continue walking.   
“Was that your family, sir?” He asks.   
“Yeah. Don't tell em’ that though, they'd never let it go.” Taako responds, trying his best to keep up his flippant attitude around this kid. Unfortunately, this was not said outside of earshot of the people lying in heaps on the floor and dismantled couch cushions, and a few half-hearted jeers come from the group that has Taako rolling his eyes. 

000

They head to a quieter room, and start looking for something to do.   
As it turns out, quiet games were in short supply at the house, and it was still a while before anyone would want to get up for breakfast, and although Taako was completely ready to force them awake, Angus insisted on letting them sleep.   
They end up just kind of staring at the walls for a while, thinking of something to do that wouldn't bother the other people in the house.   
Eventually, the silence ends when Lup goes to find him.   
She pops her head into the room, and her eyebrows raise a bit when she sees Angus sitting in the room. Angus blinks in surprise at her, and then looks back to Taako.  
“Don't look so shocked, Lup, I told yall that the kid was coming over today.” Taako says, picking at his nails to chip away at the growing restlessness that comes with not knowing what to do with himself. Lup rolls her eyes.   
“Well yeah, I knew he was coming over. I was going to see if plans have changed since I didn't hear chaos up here. I don't think I’ve met a kid so quiet. Especially with you.” Lup says, leaning against the doorframe and smiling. Taako huffs and throws a plush toy at her face, which she dodges, infuriatingly enough.   
“What's that supposed to mean, you bitch? That I cause chaos?” Taako says, lying down on the hardwood floor and resolutely not looking at her. Even without seeing her face, he knows her eyebrows raise indignantly.   
“I didn't know your sister was identical to you, sir.” Angus says. Taako lifts his head slightly to look at him.   
“Hell yeah, little man. Sister from the same mister.” He says, lying an arm over his eyes to block the light, sparing his headache a small amount.   
He feels Lup’s weight shift in the floor, and knows that she sat down near them. 

“So what are yall up to?” Lup asks, hands on her knees, clearly keen to get to know the kid that Taako has been working with.   
“Nothing right now, ma’am.” Angus responds at the same moment that Taako says, “Absolutely fucking nothing.”  
Lup laughs, and grabs a package of cards off of one of the numerous shelves in the room.  
“Anyone up for Uno?” She asks, spreading the cards in her fingers like she was dealing them into an enticing poker game. Taako rolls his eyes at her, still on the floor.   
“Please. Every game of Uno we have ever played has ended in full on screaming, you could not name a louder group activity.” Taako scoffs, trying to spare the ears of everyone downstairs, along with his own. Lup huffs, but puts the cards back on the shelf.   
“Fine. What do you want to do then?” She asks, skeptical. 

000

They end up doing the first thing that Taako can think of: drawing. They dig up a pack of crayons and some paper they weaseled away from Lucretia, and all lay on their stomachs on the floor.   
Neither of the twins are particularly skilled in artistic ventures, as that always tended to be Lucretia’s forte, but Angus seems to excel at the subject.   
Lup draws a simple black, white, and red picture of two skeletons engaged in a swing dance, one in a red dress, the other in a red bow tie, the rest of them being drawn in grainy black crayon. Taako’s drawing is admittedly mostly scribbling, and he used up most of the pink crayons on his sketch of a crystalline monster. Angus managed to make the most comprehensible drawing out of the three of them, which Taako inists is because he drew something that he could see, Klarg, a battle damaged alley cat whose hatred for everyone else was only matched by his love for Taako, who was situated on top of a bookshelf.  
Taako snatched the paper from him, much to Angus’s chagrin, and held it above his head as he jumped for it.  
“No can do kemosabe! It’s my cat, I get to keep the drawing!” Taako crowed, already walking downstairs, thinking of a place it would fit on the fridge in between the seemingly endless reminders and awards that plastered it.   
“How is he your cat if Barry bought him?” Lup asks, weaving her way in front of him.  
“Cause I'm the only one who he tolerates, duh!” Taako responds with mock sharpness.

Angus didn't manage to catch up to him before he stuck the drawing to the fridge. Angus pouted from behind him, but didn't attempt to take it down, so that was something.   
As Taako continued teasing Angus about how much everyone would love his drawing, the kitchen door swung open and a bear of a man walked in, shouting demands for hangover cures.   
He froze, eyes wide, when he saw Taako in the middle of ruffling Angus’s hair.   
Before Taako can move, Magnus rushes forward and sweeps Taako into a hug, already sounding weepy.   
“You adopted a kid!? I'm so proud of you! Why didn't you tell me? I send you like, a billion photos every time I adopt a new dog!” He cried as Taako struggled to get his feet back on the floor and stop Magnus from crushing his ribcage.   
“He’s not my kid, dumbass! I'm babysitting him!” Taako shouts, shoving at Magnus’s arms that wrapped around him.   
“Oh.” Magnus says, a little sheepishly, and puts Taako back onto the linoleum. “Well you still should have sent me pictures, I am extremely diligent about sending dog photos to all of you.” He says indignantly, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Taako rolls his eyes.  
“And I cherish every one of them. Also! I told you that Angus would be staying here tomorrow!” He says, slapping Magnus’ arm in reprimance.   
“When was that?” Magnus says, confused. Taako blinks incredulously.   
“Last night? Before dinner?” He says, hoping to spark some memory of Magnus paying attention to his voice. Magnus only shrugs.  
“I was pre-gaming.” He says simply. “Speaking of! Hangover cures!” He shouts, swinging an arm around Taako’s waist and lifting him off the ground again to Taako’s adamant protests. 

000

Taako and Lup eventually give in to everyone's persistent demands for breakfast, and they get to work on making a bomb-ass breakfast full of hydrating things to help with the remnants of the previous night's indulgence.   
To keep the kid busy without sacrificing the breakfast, they appoint him as their sous chef and instruct him to prepare the multitude of vegetables that needed to be chopped.  
This ends up being a mistake, however, when Lucretia comes in to sit and the table and starts discussing a book series that she and Angus had both read. Apparently, Angus can't hold a discussion and wield a sharp object at the same time, due to the fact that he is in the habit of gesturing while he talks, and he nearly takes Lup’s eye out while demonstrating the enormous size of the home of the main character. 

They have him set the table after a string of profuse apologies from Angus to Lup, who was laughing herself to tears at the near injury she had sustained.   
The meal was finished after forty minutes, and it was, of course, beautiful. Angus watched as Lup and Taako carried the food to the center of the table, and furrowed his eyebrows in concern as he noticed the way that Taako’s eyes strayed away from the food and stayed on the flood, as well as the way he bit his lip nervously.   
When he placed everything down, his hands were shaking hard enough that you didn't need to be a master detective to notice that he was very upset.   
Lup sees this too, and leads her brother out of the room while everyone else resolutely does not eat. Angus follows their lead, hungry as he was, he didn't want to be rude. Maybe they were the type of family that didn't eat when not everyone was at the table. 

After a few minutes of drumming his fingers on the table, Angus decides that he would rather start some awkward conversation than sit in silence any longer.   
“Is Mr.Taako okay?” He asks Lucretia. He didn't want to be insensitive or overly invasive, but he couldn't let his curiosity fester any longer without feeling like he was going to keel over.   
Lucretia looks uncomfortable, and shifts in her chair a bit as she roots around her mind for the right answer. She opens her mouth to respond, and Magnus cuts in to her reply.   
“It’s not really our place to say,” He says, talking over whatever explanation that Lucretia was going to provide. Angus tries not to let it bother him too badly. “Something… bad happened a few years ago, and it can still get to him sometimes. If he wants to tell you he will, but that's not our decision.” He says, and despite his kind tone, there is a finality in his voice that leaves no room for further questions on Angus’s part.   
Merle speaks up then, despite having been quietly nursing his headache for most of the morning.   
“Wow Magnus, that's surprisingly mature of you.” He says around a mouthful of coffee. Magnus puffs his chest out a little in pride.   
“Thank you!” He says, before catching the adjective thrown in there and becoming indignant. “Hey!” 

Before a full on verbal assault can break out, Taako and Lup walk back into the room. Taako looks a lot calmer, but Angus doesn't miss the way his eyes sweep over everyone anxiously before his shoulders relax completely.   
He eats a bite off of everyone’s plate before they do, which Angus takes a note of. It had been pretty unremarkable when it Angus was the only one he was cooking for, and he had figured at the time that it was just an excuse to eat off of his plate with the explanation of him being a chef lazily thrown in.   
But… that didn't hold, because Lup had put just as much work into the food as Taako had, and she ate nothing from everyone else.  
Angus ran over the possibilities in his head.   
Taako had OCD and one of the ways it presented himself was needing to eat a bite off of other people's plates.   
Taako had choked on food in the past, or someone else had, and this was a way of his anxiety about the situation manifesting.   
Whatever the Bad Thing that happened was had something to do with food, and it still scared Taako out of his mind.

Angus shook himself out of his thoughts when a plate of breakfast was sat in front of him, and smiled at Lucretia, who had passed it to him.   
Taako seemed to have calmed completely now, and was easily chatting with the others at the table. He didn't have anything to say, and he liked to keep his mind occupied, so he resolved to practice deduction with the other people at the table. 

Barry had his hand on top of Lup’s and they talked to each other in the tender way that only love yields, so that must be Lup’s husband, who Taako had mentioned, although never by name. 

Magnus owned dogs, that much was clear from a momententary glance, even without constantly talking about his dogs and shoving his phone into strangers faces to show them pictures, he was covered in dog hair, despite not having been home for at least a full day, and dog smell lingered on him strongly. 

Lucretia was… tougher to read. She hid her emotions well, and generally had a resting expression of passive contentment, so Angus took to examining other factors. She didn't talk with her hands, further alluding towards a restricted childhood and an anxious personality. Her arms had scribbles of reminders and drawing of local flowers, pinning her as an artist, although the ink on her arms was only slightly darker than her skin, making it hard to read from where Angus was sitting.   
Disappointed, he turns back towards the conversation that he had been tuning out to better focus on his deductions, and is not entirely surprised to hear Lup teasing her brother about a crush, presumably on his father, if the way that Taako’s eyes dart frantically towards him as he wrestles to cover his sisters mouth.   
Everyone at the table laughs, and Angus tenses for a moment that a fight is about to start, before he processes the cheerful and teasing tone in everyone's voice, and relaxes. 

000

The rest of the day is rather unremarkable. Many of the people currently staying at Taako’s house still have a hangover, so Angus does his best to be quieter than he usually would be, although Taako and many of the roudier bunch of people in the house had no such quarrels, and made seemingly as much noise as possible.   
As Angus laughed at Lup waking up Merle by setting off firecrackers in the sink, he realizes that he is not surprised at all that these are the kind of people that Taako hangs around. 

The smell of sulfurous smoke has long since dissipated by the time that Kravitz arrives at Taako’s door to pick up Angus, luckily, and when the knock sounds through the living room, Magnus pauses in his efforts to prove that he can pick up everyone in the room, and looks to the door, along with everyone else trying to evade his efforts to get his arms around them.   
A devious smile breaks out on the faces of some of the more chaotic members of the family as they look to the door, and then to Taako, who seems to pale in realization. 

The next moment is a mad dash to the door as everyone fights to be the first person to open it and, Angus realizes with a smile, to greet Taako’s crush.   
Eventually, it’s Taako who opens the door first, pushing a couple of the boys away with his foot.   
“Hey dude! You here to pick up the gremlin?” He asks, casual despite the chaos going on behind him. Kravitz laughs softly into the back of his hand and speaks with Taako quietly for a few moments, which Angus strains his ears to hear over everyone jeering at the two of them.   
His dad waves him over and Angus is all too glad to run into his arms. Don't get him wrong, Taako’s family was great, but they were a lot to deal with emotionally speaking. Very loud. Kravitz seems to sense his exhaustion and picks him up, allowing him to fling his arms around Kravitz’s neck as he says a final goodbye to Taako and his extended family.

Angus gets into the car and buckles his seat belt, and for a few minutes, the only sound in the car is slow breathing and his dad humming along to the classical music on the radio.   
Angus makes his resolve, perhaps due to his sleepiness, to ask his dad about his clear crush on Taako.   
“Dad… why haven't you asked Taako on a date?” Angus asks, voice still a little drowsy.   
Angus jerks in surprise when the car swerves a bit to the left, his dad, startled by the question, had jolted the wheel a bit.   
“Wh- what? Why would you think I- that I uh-” Kravitz laughed nervously, and Angus tried not to roll his eyes at how bad of a liar his dad was.   
“You look at him like he hung the moon.” Angus says dryly. Kravitz looks at him in mild surprise through the rearview mirror.   
“That's fairly poetic, where'd you hear that one?” Kravitz asks, eyes moving back onto the road.   
“I saw it in a movie. Don't change the subject.” Angus said, leaning back in his seat.   
“Even if I did… like him, its a moot point! He's dating someone.” Kravitz explains, resignation heavy in his voice. Angus blinks in confusion. If Taako had been seeing someone, they surely would have been at the family dinner.   
“How do you know that?” Angus asks.  
“You know the man who opened the door for us this morning?” Kravitz asked.   
“Barry.” Angus provided.   
“Barry. When I drove Taako home I saw him kiss him through the kitchen window. I'm not a homewrecker, Angus!” Kravitz says indignantly. Angus once again furrows his brows, thinking. Taako loved his sister more than anyone, there was no way he would have a fling with her husband, besides, it took very little time around them to know that Barry loved his wife deeply.   
Angus jolted in his seat, wanting to smack himself. This was hardly a mystery!  
“Dad, that was his twin sister. They’re identical, and she’s married to Barry. Taako is single.” Angus says, and jumps again, grabbing his seatbelt when his dad swerves in shock once again.  
“Stop doing that!” Angus shouts. 

000

Taako watches Kravitz’s car pull away, as he normally does, reading the several cheesy bumper stickers that adorned its back half. When the tail lights fade from sight completely, Taako turns back towards his house and sees something lying on his welcome mat that wasn't there when he came outside.   
Maybe Kravitz had left it and Taako didn't notice? That was unlikely, he decided, the object was incredibly shiny and he doubted it would go unnoticed.   
He picked it up and flipped it over, it was a thin envelope that was made of the most obnoxiously bright paper he had ever seen, and it shimmered in the light like a child's birthday present. For whatever reason, it was covered in fake sequins and glitter, like it was designed to be as eye catching as possible.   
Taako read the label, although he had a bit of trouble trying to see past all the plastic stones.   
He eventually managed, and deciphered the careful cursive:   
‘Come to WonderLand! Find your heart's desire!’

Taako huffs and tears the envelope in half, frowning at the glitter and rhinestones that fell to his welcome mat as a result, and throws it into the the small wastebasket that sits next to the door.   
“Junk mail…” Taako mutters, rolling his eyes and closing the door to his home. 

Across the street, waiting at the bus stop despite the fact that no busses were going to that stop at all today, in clothes specifically chosen to hide one's face, two people stared after him, frustration clearly written on their features despite their hidden eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! This chapter went a lot longer than expected so thanks for getting through all of it! I have some cool news! I started a tumblr account for my ao3 page! There I will post comic versions of fan fiction scenes, and will do short one shots! I might take certain writing requests if I am inspired by it too! Or you can message or ask me about the story! Theres not much on it now, but there is a short comic of the scene in the last chapter up! Check it out here https://ghostbitchh.tumblr.com/post/185074685848/comic-from-a-scene-in-this-a-fanfiction-i or @ghostbitchh on tumblr <3


	5. Date but only kind of

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AT THE TIME OF POSTING WE ARE AT 69 KUDOS!! CONGRATULATIONS TO THAT_ONE_GAY_PALADIN YOU ARE OUR 69TH KUDO GIVER! YOU WIN A HUG AND A KISS FROM THE ROCK!!

It's late, although Kravitz doesn't really know exactly by how much as he has been staring at the opposing wall for a good half an hour trying to work through his feelings, and what he was going to do next. He really does like Taako, and now that he knows that he is single the idea of pursuing a real relationship with him nearly makes his head spin.  
He sighs, and picks up his phone once more, scrolling through his and Taako’s limited text thread. Kravitz tries to bite back the disappointment he feels at how little they have talked in the near month that they've known each other. As his eyes scan over Taako’s nearly constant misspellings and grammar mistakes, he feels his heart ache, and dread fills him, but he steels himself.

Yes! He decides, silently, pressing a fist into his chest as a symbol of resolution. He is going to ask Taako out! He picks up his phone, and his fingers hover over the keys for a moment before he lets his head fall back with a groan. There is no way he is going to ask Taako out over text, and certainly not at two in the morning! He deserves more than that.  
Kravitz lies back down and places his phone face down on his nightstand before turning his face towards the wall and making a final attempt at sleep. 

As he is drifting off, though, his phone buzzes and sends out a bell noise that he has set to Taako’s frequency. He jumps up and opens his phone so quickly that you would never guess that he had been so near sleep only a few moments ago.  
As Kravitz reads through the message, he rolls his eyes with a quiet huff of amusement, because of course, Taako would be awake too. 

Taako: hey dude! they just opened the coolest fucking exhibit at the aquarium.  
Taako: they have this really cool jellyfish  
Taako: Lucretia wants to draw it so we're going and i figured the brat would want to see a rare thing too  
Taako: ask if he wants to come  
Taako: also can he come i won't let him fall in hte fish tank lmao

Kravitz feels momentary envy for Angus being invited to the aquarium. As childish as it sounds, he wanted to go. Although he knew that much of that would be an excuse to watch Taako ignore the plaques and give the fish they're own, far more ridiculous names. Plus he would get to see him in that blue, water filtered light.  
Kravitz snapped himself out of his daydream- nightdream?- and texted Taako back, confirming him being able to take Angus on the day trip.  
He sets his phone down once again, and buries his face in his pillow and screams in frustration, hoping that Angus was in a deep enough sleep not to hear his plight. 

000

The next morning, Kravitz has told Angus about the aquarium trip, and as expected, Angus is extremely stoked about it. Kravitz is struggling through tying his tie in the bathroom mirror when the doorbell rings a couple of times in quick succession, Taako’s apparent calling card for ringing doorbells. Kravitz goes to the door, a bit disappointed to see that Angus had already opened it and let Taako inside. He is wearing a surprisingly appropriate outfit for an aquarium, a sleeveless blouse and black jeans, still slightly hidden by his large blue coat.  
Taako smiles at him in greeting, before his eyes catch his half-completed tie and he rolls his eyes. Kravitz stiffens when Taako leans forward and ties it for him, and when Taako takes a step back to examine his work, Kravitz hopes that it isn't too obvious that he is blushing.  
Angus clears his throat, clearly eager to get this show on the road, and just about pushes Kravitz out the door so that they can start making their way to the aquarium. For a moment, Kravitz lets his son push him along but then startles with the realization that this is his chance.  
Kravitz digs his heels into the ground a bit, stopping his movement to the driveway, and despite his son’s complaints, he turns back towards Taako.  
“Taako! I've been meaning to ask you,” Kravitz says suddenly, hoping that his nervousness wasn't showing through in his voice too clearly. “I've known you for almost a month, but I don't really know you that well personally. Since you're working with my kid, I think we should know each other better!” Kravitz mentally kicks himself for giving a fake reason to hang out. Taako stares at him for a moment before blinking slowly.  
“So do you want to like, get coffee some time?” Taako asks, confused at Kravitz’s roundabout sentence.  
“Yes!” Kravitz says, and he can not imagine this being any more awkward. “Are you free on Saturday?” He asks, his hands shifting positions a couple of times while he tries to figure out what to do with them.  
“Yeah, sure. Come pick me up around like, one?” Taako asks, in the casual way that Kravitz wishes he could perfect. Kravitz nods, and then in a burst of strength from Angus, is shoved out the door and to his car. He abides and waves the two of them goodbye as he drives to work. 

000

It’s Saturday morning, and Kravitz is freaking out. He doesn't actually know if this is a date, so he doesn't want to wear something too fancy, he decides, opening his closet door.  
The problem comes up a few minutes later when Kravitz realizes that fancy clothes are pretty much all he owns. He lies in a pile of dress shirts, miserable, before his eyes catch red wool and he excitedly extracts it from the mess.  
It is a sweater he hasn't worn in what feels like years, and when he puts it on and examines himself in the mirror he worries that the tightness that has developed in the time he left it to gather dust might come off as a little flirty. He goes to take it off and change again, but he eyes the clock, growing dangerously close to the time he is supposed to leave to pick Taako up, and then dart to the pile of clothes that are completely inappropriate for either hanging out with a friend, or a coffee date, and decides to just wear the stupid sweater. 

000

It is Saturday morning, and after complaining to his sister about how he didn't know if it was a real date or not, he spends the entire morning tearing his room apart looking for something decent to wear.  
He ponders his options, hand to his chin in thought, as he looks over his admittedly extensive array of clothing options.  
It needed to be something casual enough to work if he was just with a friend, but also something nice enough that it would make sense to wear to a date without looking like he didn't care.  
He groans, this was so hard without knowing what kind of situation it was!  
After several renditions of the outfit, and much reprimanding from his sister about how he would freeze to death if he went outside in a sundress in March, he had put together a decent outfit that mainly consisted of a long jacket and fishnet leggings.  
He took a moment by the door, hands hovering over his coat, but he pulled away. There was no need for him to hide his face today. Today was going to be fun! Even if Kravitz did just mean hanging out as friends rather than a date. 

000

Kravitz takes a deep breath as he gets into his car to pick up Taako, giving it another once-over to make sure that it’s clean enough that he won't feel like crawling in a hole and dying when Taako gets in.  
Driving your son's babysitter home was one thing, but taking them on a date (?) was something else entirely, and he wanted it to at least be presentable. 

He pulled into Taako’s driveway after a drive that only last a few minutes, and stood up to go to the door, but stopped when he saw Taako step out, shouting goodbye to whoever was next to him. Kravitz felt of flush of joy when he realized that Taako must have been standing by the window and waiting for him.  
Taako smiles at him and waves, and Kravitz realizes that he isn't wearing the huge coat that usually covered at least half of his face, which he almost always had, even if it was unzipped.  
Taako swings himself into the passenger seat of his car and gestures for him to follow him. Kravitz smiles and complies, sitting down and taking the wheel. 

As he drives, they talk about what to do to kill time before going to the coffee shop and eventually settle on the park.  
When they arrive, Kravitz is immediately excited to see a small duck pond that had recently been installed, and apparently seeing the disappointment in Kravitz’s face at not having anything to feed them, Taako pats his shoulder.  
“Not to worry babe, Taako’s got it covered.” He says, pulling a bag of frozen peas out of his purse and hopefully not noticing the way that Kravitz jumped when Taako called him ‘babe’. Kravitz smiles and takes a handful of them, throwing them into the pond and watching as the ducks bob up and down to get their fill.  
“How did you know we were gonna be able to feed ducks today?” Kravitz asks, smiling at Taako’s preparedness. He freezes in horror when he hears a crunch beside him, already having a good guess of what was going on.  
He turns to Taako slowly and watches him struggle to chew the frozen peas.  
“Oh, hell no homie! This was not part of the plan, the peas were a snack for me!” Taako says around a mouthful of food crime. Before Kravitz can pose another horrified question, Taako gives him another handful of peas and he goes back to feeding ducks. 

After a little while, Kravitz sees a strange looking duck sitting alone under a willow tree. Empathy for the duck twinges in his chest, and he stands up to go feed the outcast animal.  
He holds his handful of peas out to the duck and realizes in horror that this is definitely not a duck. 

Taako thinks he might vomit from laughing so hard. He cannot for the life of him remember being brought to tears so quickly from laughing at Kravitz attempting to feed a goose and promptly getting his ass kicked by the said goose.  
Kravitz is clearly trying not to hurt the animal as he struggles to get it off him, honks and terrified shrieks coming from the both of him as Kravitz was nipped by the animal.  
After a few minutes, Taako decides to stop letting his suffering continue, and walks over to the brawl, and separates them by dragging Kravitz away from the aggressor and staring it down until the goose waddled back to its nest. 

“Why would you try to feed a goose? Those things are mean as fuck.” Taako says, holding the back of Kravitz’s sweater, laughter still in his voice.  
“I… thought… it was… a lonely duck!” Kravitz says between pants of exertion from his scuffle with the waterfowl of the park. This answer only made Taako laugh harder, much to Kravitz’s dismay. 

They walked around the park after that, as neither of them was frequent patrons of the area, but that ends pretty quickly when Taako spots someone that Kravitz doesn't recognize and immediately leaves Kravitz’s side to antagonize him, which he succeeds in quite intensely, and they rush out of the park, leaving behind a near catatonic park-goer who Taako calls Leon. 

000

They're laughing when they walk into the coffee shop near the park. Kravitz hadn't been to the establishment before, but Taako insisted that they made a good drink, despite the rather strange name: The Bean Zone.  
Kravitz heard a familiar voice and immediately winced.  
“Ah! My favorite customer has brought a new patron! Hello, Taako and Taako’s hot date!” Garfield, who wore a purple robe over his apron and brown shirt. Kravitz reeled backward slightly at the description that Garfield had given him. Taako rolled his eyes and walks to the counter, eyes already moving over the extensive menu of drinks and pastries that hung above Garfield.  
“Hello to you Garfield. I'm gonna-” Taako began, before being cut off by Garfield.  
“Please! It’s Garfield the Bean Warlock! I didn't go to four years of Warlock school to just be called ‘Garfield’!” He shouted, despite their close proximity. Kravitz furrowed his eyebrows.  
“I thought you were the manager at the Costco downtown?” Kravitz asks, concerned. As annoying and overwhelming as Garfield could be, he clearly loved his position and it would be sad to see him fired from the store.  
“In this economy? I have several jobs!” He says, swishing his robe over his face mysteriously.  
“Okay, whatever,” Taako says flippantly, pointing to something on the menu. “Get me the raspberry tea and uh…” He squints at the case filled with pastries. “One of those little red guys.” He says, pointing. Kravitz worries about his vagueness, that his order will be wrong, but Garfield seems to understand the order perfectly well, and looks to Kravitz expectantly. Kravitz realizes that he had been caught up in the confusion that Garfield seems to take with him everywhere and had forgotten to choose something to get.  
“Uh…” He says, realizing, a bit despondently, that he had become the very person he despised waiting behind. “Can I get ginger tea with honey please, and one of the same danishes that Taako ordered?” He asks, eager to end the interaction.  
“Of cOoOoUrSe!” He warbles, swishing his cape over himself completely and disappearing into the kitchen with a puff of glitter. Kravitz makes the conscious decision not to ask about it, and they take their seats.  
After a few minutes, a tired looking server brings them their orders, and they both dig in. 

Kravitz takes a bite of the raspberry danish and just about melts at the taste. Taako seems to notice his reaction and scrutinizes the pastry. He takes a careful bite and his eyes widen, anger flaring over his expression.  
“Hey, you cuck!” Taako shouts through the cafe, startling some of the other residents, which has Kravitz hiding his face in his hands. “This is my recipe! If you didn't buy my book I'm suing you and taking your hat!” Taako yells through a mouthful of his danish. Garfield shouts in fear and clutches protectively at his large, droopy wizard hat with a handful of stars sewn on.  
“No! I bought the book! I bought it!” He shouts, producing a book from his robe with another cloud of fine pink glitter. On the cover was Taako and who Kravitz could only assume was Taako’s sister on the cover, standing back to back and wielding different cooking utensils like they were weapons.  
Taako, apparently appeased, sat back down and took a huffy sip of his tea.  
“I didn't know you wrote a book,” Kravitz says, hoping to start a conversation that didn't including threatening take baristas possessions. Taako nods, leaning back in his chair, thinly veiled pride on his face.  
“Hell yeah, homie. A few years ago my sister and I published a bomb-ass cookbook.” He looks to the side, a bit wistfully. “We were gonna write more, but… you know. Life.” He says, taking a sip of his tea. 

They don't talk about the book anymore after that, as it is apparently a touchy subject for him. They instead take to discussing each other's lives after that, hobbies, talents, interests. It ends up being far more fun that Kravitz, or Taako for that matter, expected it to be. 

Taako runs his finger over the lip of the empty cup and considers asking if this is a date or not. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Taako opens his mouth to ask, but the moment he does, bad luck strikes and Kravitz’s eyes widen before he dives under the table.  
Taako instinctively ducks down as well, and looks around for the threat that Kravitz had spotted, but there was nothing new in the room, besides a muscular, dark-skinned woman who was now standing at the counter.  
Taako kind of forgets about the whole ‘Kravitz’s fight or flight instinct activating for no reason’ thing as he watches the woman admit to coming up a little short, and Garfield offering to trade her the drink for a lock of her hair. 

The woman sits down, drink in hand and hair looking a little choppier than when she had walked in, looking exponentially confused, and Taako turns back to the situation at hand.  
Taako ducks back under the table with his crush (?), danish held firmly in his mouth, and as he chews he asks about the strange reaction.  
“So… is that like, an ex or something?” He asks, hoping that he wasn't coming off as jealous. Kravitz shakes his head, eyes wide and staring after the woman fearfully.  
“Worse.” He whispers. “A coworker.”  
Taako tilts his head questioningly, and Kravitz quietly starts to explain.  
“Ok so, when I first-” His isn't able to finish his story, because the coworker chooses that moment to see him under the table. Honestly, Taako is surprised it did take longer as there were no table cloths to hide them.  
“Kravitz! It's sooo good to see you! I didn't know you came here!” The woman says, and Kravitz winces, back still turned to her. He stands up from under the table, hitting his head in the process, and leans against the table awkwardly, apparently not knowing what to do with his hands while he talked, and continuously shifting their positions.  
“Hey ‘ere Molly! Super cool ‘at you're ‘ere! I was just lookin’ for my… wallet?” Kravitz says, in a Cockney accent, which Taako doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at.  
“Oh it's no trouble Kravitz, I can see you're on a date there, I won't keep you long!” Molly says, laughing at seemingly, not at all phased by the sudden shift in dialect. Kravitz blushes at the insinuation, but he keeps talking.  
“Uh… yeah! Sor’ of, I suppose? Seein’ the ci'y, you know.” Kravitz then fakes a laugh, but Molly doesn't seem to notice, laughing as well and swinging her bag over her shoulder.  
“Yeah, I know how that goes. Well, I won't keep ya’! I should be goin’ now, I think this place isn't really my scene. The barista traded me my coffee for hair.” And with another confused look over her shoulder, Molly took her to leave. 

The moment the door closed behind her, Kravitz let out a deep breath and relaxed. Taako climbed out from under the table, appreciative of Garfield’s diligence in keeping a clean floor, and sidles up beside Kravitz with an incredulous expression.  
“Uhhhh… explain?” He says, barely holding back peals of laughter. Kravitz sighs heavily, covering his eyes with his hand.  
“I ‘as hopin’-” Kravitz clears his throat. “I was hoping that you wouldn't have to see that…” He says heavily as if revealing some great secret. Taako rose an eyebrow, and Kravitz explained as they left the shop as they walk back to the park where Kravitz’s car was stationed.  
“On my first day at my job, there were so many cool people there that I felt like I didn't stand out enough.” Kravitz began, laughter hidden in his embarrassment. Taako’s eyes widen, seeing where this was going.  
“You didn't!” Taako says, clutching his arm.  
“I did!” Kravitz laughs, burying his face in his hands. “I thought that if I had an accent more people would notice me and I would be more respected, so I faked one, it's been seven years and I've never had the courage to tell anyone the truth. So now every time one of my coworkers sees me in public I have to do that voice!” He finishes. He turns to Taako, smiling, to tell him another anecdote, but when he catches sight of Taako’s face, laughing nearly to tears, and face flushed with mirth, anything he had in his mind fled. This, he would think back later, was the first time he had heard Taako’s real laugh, mostly giggles with a couple of snorts and gasps, and the fact that he was the one for him to laugh like that wouldn't be something that he would forget for a long time.  
Taako hung onto his arm to keep himself steady through his giggle fit, and Kravitz can feel the warmth from his hands, and subsequently feels like his feet have left the ground.  
Taako’s laughing trails off with a sigh, and he squeezes his arm a bit, smiling coyly.  
“Ooo! You got a little muscle there!” He says, falling into another fit of laughter at Kravitz’s flustered response. 

 

Kravitz drives Taako home, letting him take control of the aux cord, and he spends the entire ride home scream singing out the open car window.  
The feeling of the wind whipping through his hair, cold as it may be, combined with the sound of Taako’s mirthful shouting brought a smile to Kravitz’s face that he couldn't shake. 

000

Taako bursts into his house and immediately throws himself face-first onto the couch, clutching one of their many throw pillows with a pained groan. Lup, from the other couch, flips a page on the book she is reading.  
“I take it the date went well?” She asks casually, smiling crookedly at her brother. Taako just groans again, but flips onto his back, still hugging the throw pillow to his chest.  
“It wasn't a date!” Taako insisted, propping himself up on his elbow. Lup looked up from her book, squinting at her brothers face.  
“Yup.” She said, returning to her reading. “It was a date.” She finishes. Taako puts a hand to his face self consciously, and a little confused.  
“How could you tell that from my face?” Taako asks skeptically. Lup gestures to his face vaguely, still not looking up from her book.  
“You have smile lines in your foundation.” She says, teasing now snaking its way into her tone. Taako let out another groan and buried his face in the pillow he held, effectively hiding the offending makeup.  
“So how did it go, really?” Lup asks, putting her book down to give her brother her full attention. Taako sighs, lying back down.  
“It was… really nice. We fed ducks and shit! We got coffee and he was so nice and so… domestic!” Taako says, face reddening. Lup whistles.  
“Ooo, the great Taako being domestic. I thought you hated all that sappy shit.” She says, leaning forward. Taako sighs heavily.  
“I do, but…” Taako rolls back over again, making it a little harder to hear the rest of his sentence. “He was… I don't even know Lup. I've never met anyone like him! He is a huge dork, but like, really dignified too? I don't know.”  
Lup hums in thought.  
“Is there going to be a second date?” She asks, and Taako looks a little sheepish.  
“What did you do?” Lup sighs.  
“We didn't communicate it very well, I still don't know if it was a date or a hang-sesh,” Taako admits, and then promptly throws the pillow he had been holding at his sister when she has a good laugh at his incompetence. 

000

Kravitz has been in bed for a while, and long since sent Angus to bed, and although he knows that Angus is almost certainly staying up reading and that he should go and tell him to go to bed for real, he doesn't have the motivation to do so.  
He has spent the last few hours texting his mom for advice, but she is being frustratingly vague, which isn't unusual, but no less infuriating to be on the receiving end of.  
He gives up, and places his phone face-down on his nightstand, rolling over to face the wall and finally try to fall asleep. 

While this rather lengthy process goes on, and he prods gently at goose-shaped bruises, and he stares at the glow-in-the-dark stars that Angus had made him put up when he was going through his astrology phase, but more than that, he thinks.  
He thinks about the day, and how he felt when he saw Taako laugh as he had. He thinks about how happy he is to have met Taako, and his hand presses a little hard on his bruise as he realizes, making him wince.  
He's in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Just a reminder that I have a tumblr @ghostbitchh ! My blog is pink, so come on down if u wanna talk about it or anything! I also post comic versions of certain scenes in my fics :D  
> Please comment of what you thought! It always makes writing easier! 
> 
> Also that fucking... accent scene was so fun to write holy crow.


	6. A Crime Is Committed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> -WARNING-  
> this chapter contains non-graphic descriptions of a home break in and gunshot wounds, as well as more graphic scenes of emergency first aid and burns.   
> Keep yourselves safe!

Taako has been trying his damnedest to teach Angus how to play poker, but this kid just doesn't seem to get it at all. Sure, they don't have chips or anything, but Taako thought that cookies would be a pretty solid substitute, although apparently even Taako’s confections don't seem to convince him to stop sticking his tongue out in concentration whenever he got a good card.   
No matter how many times Taako called him out on this tell, he kept sticking his tongue out.

Taako wins, of course, and pulls the stack of cookies over to his side of the table, and at the sight of Angus’s slightly disappointed face, he sighs and tosses over one of the cookies.   
“In the real world folks won't give you pity points if you lose. Guess you're lucky that your cool babysitter is so nice.” He teases around a mouthful of the sweet.  
He spends the next half-hour teaching Angus how to school his expression, which he can't seem to get right.   
“You're so good at this! How did you learn how to hide your expressions like that?” Angus asks, not looking up from his haphazard stack of cards. Taako looks a little uncomfortable, drawing his hands to his chest as if to pull away from the conversation physically. 

The doorbell rings and Taako relaxes, grateful for the easy out of the conversation.   
“I've got it.” He says easily and stands to open the door. The doorbell rings again as he walks towards it, and he rolls his eyes.   
“I'm coming!” He announces to whoever is so insistent that they get inside. He opens the door, and some distant part of his brain muttered: ‘This is it.’

There are a man and a woman standing at the door, and Taako immediately wants to take a step back. There is something about these people that dosent sit right with him.  
“Woah! Hey, can't say I was expecting anyone. We're not buying, sorry.” Taako says, hoping that a breezy attitude would drive them away somehow. “Don't get me wrong,” He says, closing the door halfway and peeking out from the crack. “Love the style, not crazy about the vibe you guys are bringing to the table. I'll be real, it's a little murdery-”   
The woman pulls out a gun and Taako reacts, slamming the door closed and pressing himself against it as something attempts to slam it open.   
“Angus!” He roars, and the young boy immediately looks to him in terror, having never heard Taako use this tone, so used to an easy-going personality. “Hide! Now!”   
Angus didn't hesitate before scrambling for the nearest decent hiding place.

The moment that he slams the cabinet door behind him, the front door opens with the sound of splintering wood, he hears a scuffle, a gunshot, and he hears Taako cry out. Angus nearly bails from his hiding spot right then and there, but instead cuts his losses and bites his knuckles hard enough to draw blood.   
There is a quiet conversation and the distinct noise of something heavy being dragged out of the house. Angus waits, not breathing, blood running down his hand until he hears a car drive off. Angus carefully crawls out of his hiding place, hands shaking as he expected to be grabbed from behind at any moment. When no second round of attack came, he takes a quick stock of the room- the crime scene, he corrects with a shudder, and spots a bloody drag mark out the door. He inhales in fear and he rushes to the landline phone and called his dad, barely able to put in the number with how hard his hands were shaking. 

000

Kravitz’s phone rings and he knows instantly that something is wrong. He has never been a huge believer in gut feelings, but he knows that something big just happened.   
He picks up the phone, fingers numb, and answers.   
Angus is crying, and while in any other circumstance this would worry Kravitz even more, the sound of his son’s wails bring him a startling relief, because if he is crying than he at least is alive.   
Kravitz is already swinging his coat over his shoulder and briskly walking out the door by the time he speaks.   
“Angus? Angus! What's wrong? Are you hurt? Do you need me to come home?” He asks, hoping that his panic doesn't come through the phone too clearly. Angus only keeps crying, but eventually manners to stutter out an explanation.   
“N-not me! Taako- Taako got s-shot! Someone b-broke in and took him!” Angus says, clearly falling into shock. Kravitz doesn't feel too far behind, and he stops in his tracks, feeling like there was ice in his veins. He shook it off, and rushed out the door, citing a family emergency as he runs. 

He stays on the phone with Angus, muttering encouragement as he drives far above the speed limit, praying to whatever deity was available that he didn't get pulled over. He really couldn't afford any delay right now.   
He swerved into his driveway, noticing with horror the spattering of blood over his lawn, and runs into his house. He opens the door and runs in, shouting for his son.   
Angus rushes into his arms, and Kravitz sweeps him into a hug with no hesitation, running out of the house, trying to get Angus away from the smell of blood. 

000

An hour later, they are standing on their lawn, and despite the shock blanket around both of their shoulders, they both shiver. Kravitz hasn't put Angus down since he walked into the house, but Angus seems to have no objections to being held, still weeping into his shoulder.   
They watch the cops swarm in the house, looking for anything that may help find Taako, and Kravitz sighs shakily, pressing his face into Angus’s hair, hoping he won't notice if he lets a few tears slip out. 

They don't have much more time to watch the action, however, before a car skids into the yard, nearly missing them. Kravitz jumps away from the vehicle, holding his son protectively against his chest, but relaxes when he recognizes the car, and the furious woman getting out of it.   
Lup grabs at his jacket, not seeming to mind the small boy pressed against his chest.   
“Where is my brother? Why hasn't he come back?” She asks, eyes flicking over to the house and the small army of police officers and detectives that filled the scene.   
Kravitz doesn't say anything. What do you say at a time like this?   
Lup shakes him, her features hardening, and her fear turning to rage.   
“Where the fuck is he!” She roars. Angus sniffles and lifts his head.   
“He got shot. I don't know where. They took him into their car.” He says weakly, before going back to hiding his face in his dad’s shoulder. 

Lup drops her hold on Kravitz’s jacket, eyes going glossy, and her arms fall to her side. She sits on the grass and hides her face in her hands, shaking.   
Kravitz wants to help, but… he’s not sure that he can right now. 

Luckily for Kravitz, he hears someone running up behind them, panting. He turns, and is relieved to see Barry, seemingly having followed his wife at a run, still in a bathrobe, socks, and… jeans? Must have been halfway through getting ready for bed then.   
He freezes at the sight of Lup’s distress and looks to Kravitz frantically. Kravitz still doesn't move, frozen at this moment. Barry ignores his less-than-helpful responses, and kneels by his wife, muttering to her. Lup says something back, too quiet for Kravitz to hear, and Barry looks to him, a terrified question in his eyes. 

Kravitz doesn't know how to answer him. 

000

Taako wakes up in pain, and that is where it starts.   
He groans, pushing himself into a sitting position and clutching at his side. His hand comes away bloody, and he winces.   
He can't- he can't remember what’s going on. Who hurt him and why, where he is, all he can really recall is being with someone, and being afraid.   
His eyes widen in fear. Did he have amnesia? He quickly reaches back into his mind to drag up information about himself, luckily not finding much missing. He has a sister, and a family that he earned, he had gone on a half-date with his boss, and his name was Taako.   
He relaxes his shoulders, relieved at having not lost anything important. Especially Lup. He couldn't imagine forgetting her. 

With this worry eased, he takes to looking around the room.   
He doesn't recognize it. Like, at all. There's no one on the couch next to him, so it probably wasn't a one night stand, unless they had really horrible manners.   
Taako struggles to his feet, holding a hand over his wound as if that could stop his bleeding. To Taako’s slight disappointment, there isn't much to look at in this room. It looks like a pretty typical living room, although unfamiliar. It contains a roaring fireplace, some paintings on the walls, and a shelf full of books. Taako resists the urge to throw himself dramatically onto the chaise lounge that he had just stood up from for fear of hurting himself further.   
“This is some Saw bullshit…” He mutters, hand still pressed firmly to his injury. Looking for an exit, and of course, there isn't one. Only a smooth wall. Taako huffs, nerves and pain starting to get to him and make his hands shake. 

It isn't much longer before Taako grows impatient, and he starts pulling the furniture off the wall. There is nothing behind the bookcase or lounge, so he gets to pulling books off the shelves and paintings off the wall.   
He sits down for a moment, taking a breath and allowing his heart to catch up with him. 

While he is sitting down, he spots something that he hadn't before.   
There is a fire poker, with its tip glowing red hot as it sits in the blaze. Taako is suddenly far more aware of the blood seeping from between his fingers. Taako gulps, knowing exactly why the poker is there. 

Taako spends the next half hour nervously preparing for this emergency first aid, cooling the poker until it is no longer red, and tearing his shirt into strips. Mostly, though, he tries to convince himself that he is brave enough to do this.   
He holds the poker over his now sluggishly bleeding wound, and tells himself that the dizziness he is feeling is due to blood loss and not nerves. He holds the spine of a book in his mouth in place of a painkiller, which he certainly isn't going to find. 

He breathes and tries not to let any tears escape as he holds the metal close enough to feel the heat. He presses the blunt side of the instrument to his wound, willing himself not to cry out.   
‘One. Two.’ He counts in his head before pulling away. He continues with this process of controlled burning until his wound stops bleeding. 

He drops the poker, now only as hot as an old fire, and heaves.   
It's not like he hasn't been burned before, he is a bomb-ass chef, and you can't make an omelet without earning a few minor burns after all, but this was… this was different than other burns he had obtained. This was an itching, numbing kind of pain.   
He heaved again, although luckily nothing came up. He had a feeling that he would need everything in his body for whatever was to come. 

He stood up, leaning on his good side and hugging the wall a bit more than was necessary. The last thing he wanted was to reopen his injury and have to re-cauterize it. The first time had been hellish, he couldn't imagine a second round.   
He continued searching for anything that could help him get out of the room, like a jackhammer, or a cool sword. He’ll honestly take what he can get at this point.   
It isn't until around an hour later when he is flipping through the books that he finds anything remotely useful.   
A bag of salt and a bottle of water. Taako exhales in relief and quickly downs half of the bottle, before hesitantly pulling it away from his mouth and soaking his makeshift bandages before rewrapping his bullet-wound-turned-burn and sighing in relief at the cooling that the water brought. Taako drank the rest and then turned to the salt.   
Taako had a sneaking suspicion that this was indeed some Saw bullshit, what with all the vague puzzle pieces that he had been given. This was way too specific to be a random room to wake up in. He did his best to put together the ‘puzzle’ that he had been presented, although he moved a little slower than usual, what with his brain being clouded by pain and all around discomfort. He did figure it out eventually, though, like he always did, and managed to remember the trick he learned about using salt to put out a fire.   
He shoved the bag over to the fireplace, not willing to try carrying it and reopening his wound, and dumped the salt onto it.  
The fire went out, thankfully, and somewhere in the room, something started ticking. Taako twitched, looking around for the source of the noise, and inhaling sharply as he realized what it was. It sounded like a timer. 

Taako stuck his head in the fireplace, wincing at the residual heat that was being given off, and looked up the chimney. He frowned at the sight. This was clearly the exit to this room, but it seemed like he was on a time constraint, if the ground below him becoming hotter and hotter by the second was any indication.   
Taako prayed quietly that his injuries wouldn't hinder his acrobatic finesse, and leaped upwards, just as fire reignited in the hearth. Taako stared at the fire below him, wide-eyed. He huffed, looking up at the open vent above him. ‘Nowhere to go but up!’ he thought to himself firmly, hoping that it wasn't too obvious that he was trying to convince himself. 

000

After a rather strenuous climb up a small chute, and then through an arduously narrow vent system, Taako saw an opening in the paneling and dropped down, thankfully landing in an impressive spider-man-esque crouch, not eating shit and gaining a broken nose along with his extensive laundry list of other injuries.   
He stands and dusts himself off, making a halfhearted quip to no one in particular about how their vent shafts need cleaning. He looks around the dark room; so dark, in fact, that there are no discernable walls or ceiling.   
Something mechanical clicks under the floor and Taako jumps, stepping back from the noise. Music starts to blare, and while at any other moment he would have taken a second to appreciate how hard it slaps, but right now it makes him clap his hands over his ears to prevent his headache from worsening.   
Lights start to strobe on the walls, paneling all in different colors, as a platform raises from the floor along with a plume of dramatic fog. 

Taako squints past the flashing lights and obscuring fog, trying to see who his captors are, if the two people standing on the small stage are indeed the people who brought him here.   
A voice booms out through a set of loudspeakers that Taako hadn't noticed before, and he jumps away from the sudden noise.   
“WELCOME TO YOUR DREAM COME TRUE!” A female voice blares, before a second, more masculine voice cuts through the chaos.   
“A PLACE TO FIND WHAT YOUR HEART DESIRES!!” Shouts the other voice, loud enough to feel like it’s rattling his brain inside his skull.   
“WELCOME TO WONDERLAND!!” They cry out together, and all of a sudden, the flashing stops, and Taako can open his eyes fully. 

He looks at the people on the pedestal, now only illuminated by a single spotlight in otherwise total darkness. They smile down at him in a way that makes his skin crawl uncomfortably, and he suddenly remembers exactly how he got here.   
“You!” He shouts, pointing an accusing finger at his captors. “You shot me!”  
The two people don't seem to be intimidated by his cries, and their smiles do not change, making Taako shiver.   
“So why am I here?” He asks, allowing all the pain he had been feeling since he had arrived here to slip into his voice and turn to venomous anger, still gaining no reaction from the two strangers. 

They giggle, and for a moment Taako has a flash of memory. A story that Angus had told him once, that Taako had pretended not to listen to, about how his last pair of babysitters had turned out to be wanted criminals. Torture, murder, extortion. Those are the list of sins that runs through Taako’s head.   
Despite everything, despite knowing that he is truly at the mercy of these two sinister figures, Taako laughs dryly. The twins cock their heads to the side, eerily mirrored to each other, in curiosity. Taako wipes a fake tear of mirth from his eye, hoping that this show of resilience would be taken at face value.  
“Dumbasses…” Taako says quietly, he is nervous about antagonizing these people, he isn't too proud to admit that, but he has never been one to back down from a challenge. “You got the wrong guy, I didn't do shit to put you guys in the brig, I was just watching the brat! Now you'll never get to him, everyone's gonna be on guard!” Taako says, puffing his chest out, ignoring the way it stretches his burn uncomfortably. 

The twins smiled at each other in a way that reminds Taako, horribly, of being a child and having to watch adults who knew things that you didn't talk behind your back.   
Before Taako can get another word in, the platform begins to sink into the ground, and although Taako tries to follow his captors, he staggers at a sudden stab of pain to his side, and he falls to his hands and knees, glaring down at the two criminals as they sank into darkness.   
The hole in the floor closes, and across the room light floods in as a door slides open. 

Taako takes a deep breath and gets to his feet, not willing to show any weakness to the bastards who had taken him here, despite his pain, and marches out the door. 

000

Kravitz and Angus had been invited by Barry to stay at their house until everything was solved, and Kravitz accepted graciously. He obviously wasn't willing to stay at their own house after everything that had happened that evening, and he certainly didn't want to sleep at a motel where they could be easily found from information given out by tired and undiscerning employees. 

By the time the clock rolled over to midnight, it seemed like half of the neighborhood was in Taako’s living room. Angus sleepily informed him that most of the people here he recognized as Taako’s extended family, although there were a couple of people who he didn't know,, such as a short man with a ginger beard streaked with grey who called himself Davenport, and a tall, strong looking woman who introduced herself as Magnus’ wife Julia, along with two other women who held hands and shot each other nervous glances from time to time named Carrie and Killian. Davenport had apparently flown here from Brazil the moment he heard, which didn't sound possible to Kravitz, but he was far too exhausted to question it. 

Kravitz’s shock is fading, even as his hands shake around his now-cold cup of tea, but he wishes that he could say the same for Lup, who appears to be inconsolable as she clings to Barry and weeps into his shoulder. He runs his fingers through her hair and struggles not to cry as well.   
The room is quiet, as everyone is afraid to raise their voice, or maybe everyone’s throats are just raw from crying, who knows. 

Angus, Kravitz notices with no small pang of guilt, seems to be doing the best out of everyone, walking around the room with small words of comfort, even though his eyes betray his tiredness, and his hands shake with residual fear.   
This is what snaps Kravitz out of his funk, seeing his son act more like an adult than him, even when he’s scared. Kravitz gets up off the couch for the first time in many hours, startling a couple of the people who had taken up residence on neighboring cushions and sweeps Angus into a firm hug.   
Angus shakes a bit harder and allows himself to cry for the first time since they arrived at the house. Kravitz holds him closer, rocking back and forth slightly, before nodding to the other people in the room and mouthing ‘guest room?’. Barry nods back and points down the hall.   
Kravitz carries Angus to the guest room and lays him down gently, happy to see that he has already fallen asleep, even as more tears drip down his face.   
Kravitz checks that all the windows are locked, and sighs, heading back to the living room with a new determination flooding him.

He sits on the couch next to Lup, who has moved on from full-on sobbing to just hiccups and the occasional tear.   
“The police aren't going to find him,” Kravitz says, and then pales as Lup cries harder and Barry looks at him like he killed his dog. Kravitz’s shoulders stiffen as he suddenly finds himself under the wrath of all of Taako’s extended family. Kravitz waves his hands frantically.   
“No! No, I didn't mean it like that! It's just that I’ve dealt with these people before, and they couldn't stop them by themselves. It ended up being Angus who found their hideout first, and the one who managed to put them in jail.” He takes a deep breath, wringing his hands together. “And besides, my… previous job was… specified to this situation.” He says, admittedly rather awkwardly. He stifles under the stares of the multitude of people in the room and seems to shrink down into himself.   
“And that job was?” Davenport asks, crossing his arms and raising one bushy eyebrow skeptically.   
“I was a… I guess you could call it a… bounty hunter?” He says nervously.   
There is a silence in the room for a moment, though it is quickly broken by the woman who has been scribbling in an intricately bound notebook since Kravitz arrived here.   
“A bounty hunter?” She asks, clearly at least a little disbelieving. Kravitz flushes in embarrassment, remembering suddenly, why he didn't often reveal this information.   
“Well, its official title was a Fugitive Recovery Agent, but it was essentially a bounty hunter’s position. I dealt with violent criminals fairly regularly, and although I admittedly have been out of the game since I adopted Angus, I certainly haven't lost all my skills.” Kravitz explains, still wringing his hands anxiously. 

Another glance up at the room reveals everyone staring at him, although their faces are no longer stained with suspicion, rather with tentative hope.   
“And I know I don't know any of you all that well, but I certainly do care about Taako, and I'll do whatever it takes to bring him back.” He says, voice a little more strong. It was all he could hope to rouse a little fighting spirit in place of this desolation that filled the room. “A-and from what I've heard from Taako about all of you, it seems like all of us are more than capable to find the people who took him and bring them in!” He says, voice raising in volume involuntarily at the end, and he hopes it doesn't come off too much as a cliche rousing speech. 

The people in the room all look a little stronger, and a few people get to their feet. People begin to talk, plan their course of action, talk over what they know so far.   
Needless to say, not many inhabitants of the house got much sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *frantically googling if bounty hunter is a real job*
> 
> Thank you all for reading!! Please leave comment to tell me what you thought,and remember you can contact me @ghostbitchh on tumblr!!   
> <3


	7. Flashbacks and Government Heists

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello. Im posting again, as I normally wrote on my school computer, which of course I didnt havve in the summer. Happy to annouce that I bought myself a desktop. Admitedly though its a little slapdash so I may not be uploading as frequently thanks to the internet cutting out every ten minutes :( 
> 
> Please note that this chapter contains scenes of emotional abuse and descripions of physical abuse! Take care!

Taako has been walking with a limp for a while now, having unquestionably sprained his ankle a few rooms back, the one that had included parkour that exceeded even his immense skill in acrobatics.   
That had been the worst one so far, as it was the only one to actually injure him, although Taako could tell that the difficulty of each ‘challenge’ was increasing, however slowly. Most annoying was the occasional input from the wonder twins, who he still refused to call by name, from LED screens and hidden intercoms that were scattered throughout the maze. He has been doing his best to be as frustrating as possible for them and seems to be succeeding if the amount of times they have cut their transmission short is anything to go by. 

Another painful element of this maze is that he has no idea how long he's been here. There are no windows or clocks, and he doesn't know how long he had been unconscious when he arrived. The only metric was judging by how hungry he was, but after finding some fruit and bread in a room designed after the painting ‘The Last Supper’, that scale was gone.   
Not that he would ever admit it to the two cuckolds that had trapped him here, but the lack of awareness of the passage of time was… scary.   
He worried for his family, mainly his sister, but also for Angus, who had surely seen all this go down and would no doubt help his family look into his disappearance. It hadn't taken very long to learn that he was not exaggerating being the worlds greatest detective. He sure does appreciate the help, but he doesn't want a kid getting mixed up with all this shit a second time. 

Taako slides the final wooden block into place and another door opens with a musical chime that he is getting really tired of hearing.   
He struts into the next room, trying to keep his bad ankle under wraps (figuratively, of course. He hadn't managed to find bandages yet, but he sure as hell was keeping his eyes open for them so as not to show off his injury too much to his captors. He didn't know how these rooms were designed, and they could very well design a room based on running and jumping just to trip him up.   
The next room is designed after a hospital ward, only distinguishable by the hordes of rats pittering around, and Taako immediately gets to work trying to find first-aid supplies in the seemingly endless supply cupboards. 

After twenty-some minutes, he finds a couple of icepacks and elastic bandages. The reaction is mixed, he is relieved to have first-aid supplies, but this also means that the twins definitely know about his injuries. He wraps his ankle and starts solving the puzzle, moving on autopilot, opening a few boxes, pulling some levers, the works.   
Eventually, he lowers his temperature to the code, and when the thermometer in his mouth reaches 96. 6, the door slides open.   
Taako shivers and climbs out of the ice bath he had submerged his lower half in, moving towards the door.

The wonder twins are standing in the next room, and Taako groans, not slowing his pace, and instead walks through their projection. They both frown at Taako’s noncompliance.   
“You could at least play along. We went through so much trouble to get you here!” The woman says, pouting. Taako doesn't grace that with a response, instead just flipping them off with his back turned, already solving the puzzle, moving a projector to create the right constellations in the dark room that was apparently supposed to be space.   
The next ten minutes are passed with Taako’s quiet cursing and wishing that he had paid more attention in astrology, with the occasional comment from the two holograms in the center of the room, which Taako was getting very good at ignoring. 

Its around an hour in, right when Taako puts all the proper stars in place for Ursa Major, when he hears a voice that he had never expected to hear again.   
“Is he gone?” Someone whispers from out of the frame of the wonder twins hologram. Taako whips around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash, and the twins look a little sheepish, which he would certainly relish in if he wasn't so .   
Taako rushes the projection, forgetting it’s intangibility for a moment in his multitude of emotions, most of them negative, all of them unidentifiable. The twins startle, and the man jumps and waves his hand. 

The projection disappears and Taako falls to his knees, whether from exhaustion or from the pain from aggravating his injury even he doesn't know. 

Sazed is there. He’s part of this. 

000

Angus has been investigating Taako’s disappearance feverishly, only stopping to eat, drink, or sleep when one of the adults make the executive decision.   
This is the first time his dad has ever been this involved with one of his cases, and despite the high stakes of the situation, Angus does feel that this counts as a bonding experience. He shakes himself out of watching his dad demand information from the police and turns back to his work of describing the twins to Lucretica, who is creating a police sketch for both of them, as they are apparently impossible to find online, despite their loud presence.   
Lup has managed to calm herself down enough to help Barry and his dad interrogate the meek-looking cop at their door; although apparently she isn't giving them the answers that they want, because it is currently taking the combined strength of both her husband and his dad to hold her back from punching the officer and losing another member of the rescue team.   
Angus rushes over to help, but there apparently isn't any need, as Killian, Carrie, and Noel, who was a hacking expert that Lucretica had invited over, rush over to the scuffle and pull Lup back, calming her down quickly.   
The cop apologizes awkwardly and scurries out of the room. 

Angus bounds over to the huddle, desperate to know more about the argument even while Lucretia exasperatedly tried to call him back to her drawing.   
“What weren't they telling you, Ms. Lup?” Angus asks, already pulling up a pad of paper. Lup gives him a tired smile, ruffling his hair.   
“They won't give us the traffic cam footage. We can't see where the getaway vehicle is going so we don't know where he is!” Around halfway through the sentence, her fiery anger seemed to return, and she slammed a fist into the wall next to her. Her fist goes through the drywall, and the moment Angus sees her eyebrow twitch he slams his hands over his ears.   
Luckily for the eardrums of everyone in the room, Barry also notices this impending rage and shoves a pillow into Lup’s hands, which she screams into angrily.   
Angus takes in the scene, watching Kravitz’s hands hover uncomfortably over Lup’s back, not quite sure how to deal with the situation.   
“Dad?” Angus says, wanting Kravitz to at least know about his plan before he put it in action, even if he couldn't really stop him from carrying it out.   
“Yeah, bud?” Kravitz replies, still distracted by Lup’s anger.  
“I think I'm gonna break a law,” Angus says matter of factly. Kravitz looks to him and blinks in mild surprise, and then, to Angus’s delight, smiles. 

000

It’s one in the morning, which is way past Angus’s bedtime, by the way, and he and a small group of people who had recently been gathered at Taako’s house are now standing outside of the local Data Archive, where public and private records are stored.   
The building apparently has a very lax stance on guards, or security in general, which Angus would find appalling in any other situation, and although he might file a complaint on their poor measurements to keep the city’s information safe, for now he accepted this stroke of good luck. God knows they needed it right about now.  
Barry claps a hand on his shoulder, and he turns to look at the team that they had hastily assembled. Lup, Barry, Killian, Carrie, Noel, and of course Angus, all wearing bandanas around the lower halves of their faces. Except for Kravitz, who was sitting in his car a ways back, employing himself as a getaway driver.   
Lup pulls her mask down and Angus gives her a nod, signaling their first phase of the plan. Distraction. 

Several meters behind them, a fireball flares to life, and several guards jump to attention and rush to handle the commotion.   
One guard looks around nervously but remains at her station. Angus curses quietly, but Lup doesn't appear to be phased, instead pulling Barry in for a kiss on the cheek and stepping out of the bushes they had been hiding in, immediately catching the attention of the guard.   
“Help!” Lup cries out, and Angus is genuinely impressed by the distress in her voice. If he hadn't spent so long learning how to pick liars out of a crowd then he certainly would have believed her without question.   
“That was the biggest explosion Ive ever seen!” Next to him, Barry snorts in amusement at the blatant lie.   
The guard buys it though, blushing at the intentionally revealing dress that Lup had worn in case their plan B was carried out, which it certainly was now.   
“Uh… how can I help you out, ma’am?” The guard asks nervously, carefully keeping her eyes off of Lup’s chest. Lup grabs the guard’s hand and pulls her towards the others, playing up flirting as much as possible.   
“I have to get home and I'm just too scared to go alone! Will a strong security guard like you walk me home?” Lup asks, not letting go of the guard's arm. The woman looks rather flustered but follows Lup anyway.   
Lup brings the guard into the bush where the rest of them lie in wait, bandanas hiding their faces, and realization flashes in the woman’s eyes.   
“Hey! You-” Her eyes roll back into her head, and behind her is Killian, holding up a well-placed karate chop and looking down at the person who had previously been standing in the way of answers on their friend’s whereabouts. 

 

They tie her hands behind her back and quickly determine which out of them would most likely fit into her uniform.   
The woman was rather broad-shouldered but short enough that Noel would fit into her clothes fairly easily. So that was where they were now, following Noel, who was now sporting a stolen uniform in case any of the guards came back and saw a bunch of people in the building with no escort.   
Carrie picks the lock so quickly that Angus thought it had been unlocked to begin with. They walk onto the linolium floors of the entryway and all squint to see in the dim light. Lup smiles and lights a match with a flourish, flooding the small room with flickering orange light. Barry scoffs good-heartedly, and clicks on his flashlight.   
“Put that out.” He whispers. “You'll burn your fingers.”   
Lup huffily waves the match to extinguish it and turns on her own flashlight with significantly less flare. The group walks forward through the hallways of filing cabinets, and Angus is itching to rifle through every single one of them, but he reminds himself of what Lydia and Ed are capable of and keeps his focus on the task at hand. 

Lup, apparently, had not had such reservations, as she comes running back to the group, triumphantly holding up two bills.   
“I got the fifteen dollars!” She says a little louder than is appropriate for the situation. Barry hushes her frantically, and they fall behind a bit, whispering to each other.   
Angus puts this contextless interaction behind him and continues searching for the traffic cam footage. 

000

It takes a little while, since no one wanted to split up, besides Lup and her escapade to steal from the Chief of Police, but they eventually find the computer holding the footage, and Noel makes quick work of getting into the system.   
They download it onto a hard drive, and the moment Lup tucks it carefully into her purse, Barry finishes destroying the conveniently old security cameras and covering their tracks, and starts waving them out of the building.   
They rush out, maybe moving a bit too fast to be inconspicuous, but don't see any other guards, all still busy with the fire Lup had set. When they step back out into the cool air, a car horn beeps at them, and they rush Kravitz’s car, all getting in and shouting for him to drive back the house.   
000

The moment they get home, victory cries ring through the house from everyone who hadn't accompanied them on the mission, and Noel plugs the flash drive on to an expensive looking laptop. Everyone leans over the back of the couch where she sits to see the screen, and Angus fights back the claustrophobia that tightens in his chest at the number of people near him.   
This is more important. 

The footage starts in their yard, and they see Taako being carried, unconscious, into a van. He can hear Lup grinding her teeth next to him, but doesn't comment.   
The car drives down a few roads, and Angus starts making a mental map of their route. Nothing too interesting seems to be happening yet, but they keep making false turns, so Angus makes a note that they are trying to cover their tracks.   
After several useless circles and making sure they werent being tailed, the van pulls under an overpass, and stops. 

The room is silent, holding their breath to see if they had found where they were hiding Taako. Apparently not, though, as another car pulls up next to the van.   
Someone steps out of the smaller car, and lights a cigarette, leaning against the hood. The twins climb out of the van and pull Taako’s still limp form out of the backseat, moving him into the trunk of the car.   
The three figures have a conversation that the camera doesn't pick up, and Angus curses that it was too dark to read their lips, but doesn't take his eyes away from the screen.   
The broader man from the second car turns his face for a moment to cough, and in doing so, the crowd gathered around the laptop sees his face. 

Angus nearly falls off the couch at the cacophony of noise that erupts from the group, most gasping, a couple of Taako’s closer friends screaming.   
“What! Who is it!” Angus cries out, panicked. No one responds to him right away, as Lup is now cursing in such a way that his dad is trying to cover his ears. Angus impatiently brushes his hands away from the sides of his head and stands up.   
Barry seems to notice his distress and explains.   
“That piece of shit-” Barry cuts himself off with an apologetic glance at Kravitz. “Sorry, crap. He was Taako’s fucking shitty boyfriend.” His anger seemed to outweigh his apparent reluctance to swear around kids at the moment, as he now placed no such restrictions on his language.

After Angus is left to let that little nugget of information sink in, Noel unpauses the footage and they all reluctantly turn back to the screen.   
The three kidnappers converse for a while longer, before laughing into their hands and climbing into the car that held Taako’s unconscious form.   
As the car drives away, a slender hand belonging to one of the twins extends from the open sunroof, holding a match.   
The lit match is tossed towards the van, and the moment it hits the ground next to it, which Angus had failed to notice was sodden with gasoline from a punctured gas tank, the entire area seems to explode, and the camera goes out.   
Everyone jumps again, thankfully with less screaming this time, although frantic mutters do sweep across the room.   
Angus jumps up in sudden realization, the excitement that always filled him when he found a lead not too dampened by the fire that had destroyed the camera. He flushes a bit when the eyes of the other people in the room land on him in mild surprise.   
He flinches back from the attention but tries to explain his plan past his timidness.   
“If we find the van that they left behind, we can track the second car to wherever they took Taako!” He shouts, hoping that his ecstasy isn't too clear to the people congratulating him for his observation. 

000

Its been dark for a while and Taako hasn't stood up in quite some time. He’s thinking. He had honestly thought that he had gotten over the life-ruining event from a few years ago but hearing his voice had unwound the stitching that he had so carefully put in place. His eyes unfocus, and everything goes white and black at the same time.

And then, Taako is smiling, and standing, which he thinks is strange considering how sickenignly painful standing is on his injured ankle. He can't quite seem to control his movements, and his head turns without his intention to look at the man standing on the other side of a counter filled with food.   
He feels as if something is wrong with this scene, but that doesn't stop Taako’s movements, so he puts it out of his mind. He kisses Sazed, and doesn't recoil from his touch even though he wants to, because there is a sweaty hand on the back of his neck, holding him in place.   
Sazed lets go, and Taako tries not to feel too guilty at his relief, and walks into the kitchen

Taako sighs, leaning against the immaculate counter and pondering his poor life decisions. He had moved across the country to pursue his dreams, even though it pained him immensely to leave his sister and friends behind, although; he reminded himself firmly, she had Barry now, she wasn't alone, and she didn't need him.   
That small comfort didn't take the sting away completely, and he washes his hands, even though he knows that won't take away the strange uncleanness that wrapped him like a funeral shawl.   
He sighs, and wishes, selfishly, that his sister was here. Lup would always be the one to pull him out of his own head when he got spacey, and Sazednever seemed to have the time. Taako reminds himself that this is probably for the best, as Sazed and Lup never got along.   
Taako runs soap over the bruises on his wrist and maybe thinks that she was right to distrust him. 

000

Taako is garnishing a meal, which is weird too, because he was sure that he was just washing his hands, but he shakes it off, and hands out small servings to the smiling crowd, forgetting to eat some himself. He forgives himself for being a little spacey, as he had been knocked around a bit last night, and his headache was really giving him shit today.   
Beside him, Sazed stares at him in dawning horror, and Taako blinks in confusion at his strange reaction to a fairly common event. 

Then someone screams. 

000

Six were dead.   
That's what they told him, and Taako wished that the nurse had been a little less cold, although he certainly couldn't blame her for being short with a murderer.   
Forty had eaten the dish, and Taako could only thank God for modern medicine and luck. 

Taako wept into his hands, only just barely keeping himself from screaming. He was in the hospital now, but he knew that he would be taken to wait in jail when they saw that he was healthy.   
Sazed had fled, and Taako almost wished that he had followed. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life in jail, but he certainly didn't think he could live with the guilt, and he wished that Sazed hadn't left. As cruel as Sazed could be, Taako didn't want to be alone.   
He had been allowed the small kindness of being left his phone, and he picks it up with shaking hands and calls Lup. 

 

Sazed didn't want Taako speaking to his sister, forcing him to contact her in secret, as Sazed and Lup got along like Redbull and milk, and he would scream at Taako when he heard Lup's voicemails, or whenever she left after a visit. After several months of not being able to talk to his sister, and seemingly endlessly turning her away from visiting, along with Sazed's constant and firm conviction that Lup was trying to tear them apart, Taako started to resent her.   
He's not proud of that fact, mind you, he will rarely admit it out loud, but it is true. Its not that he hated her. He didn't think he had that in him, but there was a certain... bitterness to their relationship that hadn't been there before. So at some point he just… stopped calling.  
So it was likely a pretty big surprise for Lup that Taako was calling her at two a.m. after months of radio silence. She answered her phone, which Taako was surprised at for only a moment before guiltily reminding himself of everything that they had been through together. Of course, she would answer if he called.   
"Hello?" She yawned out, and Taako wondered nervously if she had even read the caller ID, if when she saw it was him she would hang up on him and leave him in this pit that he dug for himself and repeatedly ignored her efforts to help him climb out.   
"Lulu..." Taako said quietly, wincing at how raspy and choked his voice was. Damn, was he crying? He hears fabric shuffling and knows that she's getting out of bed by the sound of Barry's confused and sleepy tone, and nearly sobs at the familiarity in the sound.   
"Taako? What’s going on! Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?" She asks frantically. Taako shakes his head, not wanting his sisters first time hearing his voice in months to be him at what must have been his lowest moment, and that was saying something. He knew that he couldn't get through a phone conversation completely nonverbal without making his sister think that he had died or something, so he chokes out a couple of reassurances that seem to do nothing to quell her worries.  
Her questions don't stop and neither does Taako’s onslaught of tears, but he eventually manages to answer the most important one.   
"I'm- I'm at the Old Elfington Memorial Hospital. I think I really fucked up Lup."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading as always! Please note that the depictions of PTSD in this story are based off of my own experiences. Everyone who suffers from it has a different experience!


	8. Breakthroughs and Broken Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey yall! Warning for this one: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF INJURIES/ VOMIT/ BROKEN BONES   
> Had to edit this on my phone, so apologies for any poor grammar.

Once again, Taako has completely lost all sense of the passage of time, but based on how his wounds have been healing, he would say it’s been about half a day since his last breakdown. He needs to have a firm head on his shoulders right now, partially to keep his cool in a high-pressure situation like this, but mostly because he was currently fighting a mechanical bull. 

Taako is a party guy, maybe not as much as some of his friends (he still has no idea what a 'party-point' is or how to get any), but he knows how to work a room. So of course, when he thought mechanical bull, he thought of the machines that simulated a bucking bull that drunk people in pleather cowboy hats would climb onto and almost immediately be thrown onto the matted floor below to tumultuous cheers from the watching crowd.   
This was not that. 

He had been waving this stupid red cloth at the metallic animal for what has felt like several frustrating years, but really it couldn't have been more than 20 minutes. He reached behind himself to find support on an opposing wall, but quickly pulled his hand away when it was met with a painful electric shock, and Taako cursed under his breath.   
The bull had backed him into the tall electric fences that lined the clearing where the bull was kept.

The bull began charging him, and in an adrenaline-fueled moment of unnatural strength, Taako grabbed the bull by the horns and spun, slamming the 'animal' into the high voltage fence and shouting in pain as the metal horns conducted electricity into his hands.   
The bull fell into a smoldering heap of metal and Taako huffed a bit, catching his breath. He knew that he looked like a mess right now. He had caught a glimpse of his reflection in a room with a floor of black glass, and he knew that after the fight with the stupid fucking bull he could only look worse. 

His hair was a mess, full of what seemed like everything under the sun, from twigs that came from god knows where to blood that Taako wouldn't put his money on being his own. His face was crusted with blood that he knew for a fact was his, as he was currently wiping away the remnants of a recently healed bloody nose that he had earned from a pretty nasty headbutt from the bull, although it thankfully only grazed him with its razor-sharp horns. 

He knows its not just the harrowing puzzles taking their toll on his body, although that is certainly the cause of most of the physical changes. No, since Taako had first seen Sazed in the hologram transmission from the twins, he hasn't been too good about keeping himself together as he had before. This distraction of knowing that this wasn't just a coincidence, or a backhanded way of getting to Angus, that it was a legitimate attempt to kill or maim him from somebody who hated him was taking his focus away from the puzzles he was meant to be solving, both making the likelihood of injury and the time it took to solve the puzzles increase. 

The twins' holograms pop up again as the heavy metal door slides open, signifying his success in this 'challenge', now accompanied by Sazed, who Taako doesn't flinch at this time, as he has been showing up in the twins' holograms ever since the first time Taako spotted him.  
Just because he doesn't show it doesn't mean that the smirk on Sazed’s face doesn't make his stomach twist in a strange cocktail of negative emotions.   
He knows that if he doesn't speak, Sazed and the Wonder Twins will consider his silence as a victory, so, with as much venom as he can wring out of his tired body, he speaks to his tormentors, past and present.   
"Are you really doing this to get back at me for those people's death? I would never have pinned you as the empathetic type, especially after all those times you cracked me across the face." Taako says, spitting out a mouthful of blood after he finishes speaking.   
Sazed glares at him darkly, but Taako is pleased to see that the Twin's smiles have tightened and they are sharing awkward glances. Apparently, when they called Sazed for this mission, they hadn't known that he was Taako's ex and werent prepared for the beef to be talked out while they were in the room.   
"Well!" Lydia says, unclasping her gloved hands with a palpable air of false cheer. "I think that's enough of that! You two will have plenty of time to talk out your issues once Taako escapes from here!" 

Edward chimes in with a giggle that immediately brings a scowl to Taakos face.   
"If he escapes, dear sister!" He says, putting the back of his hand to his chin in a way that Taako absolutely would have called him a weeb for if he wasn't in such a compromising position. Lydia smiles with cruelty masked by her thick makeup and the colorful stage lights.   
"Ah, yes, my mistake. If."   
The transmission cuts out, leaving Taako alone with a still-smoldering animatronic and a bloody nose. 

000

After a short rest, which was the fifteen minutes that he was allowed after completing every challenge, before the room began to heat up to unbearable temperatures if he lingered in one place too long, Taako walked through the next door, head swiveling for any immediate dangers, thinking that he had been here for far too long if he already had a system for the rooms. 

This room seemed to have an industrial theme, highly reminiscent of the opening scene of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street', steaming pipes burning whatever skin brushed against it and all.   
"This is kind of a shitty rip-off! Couldn't think of your own slasher concept?" Taako quips light-heartedly to the empty room. Upon getting no response, he huffs in irritation and begins looking for the puzzle. 

He wanders around the irritatingly foggy room for ten minutes longer before becoming frustrated with the lack of hints- hell! The apparent lack of a puzzle at all!  
"This is bullshit!" He cries out, throwing his arms in the air in frustration. "I don't even know what I'm supposed to be solving!"   
There is no response to his agitation, but he knows that he has been heard as something mechanical clicks over his head. He looks up, not finding it too sinister, but still not able to shake the feeling of danger.  
This feeling, apparently, is not unfounded, as he has barely enough time to dive out of the way as a washing machine comes free from its tethers and comes careening down towards him from several feet in the air.   
Unfortunately for him, the injuries he had earned throughout these hellish trials were not just superficial, and many of them hindered his athleticism greatly. So while he normally would have been able to avoid the danger running on instinct and skill alone, now these two artistries werent working in tandem as they usually were. This was likely the reason for what was to come.  
Although he luckily avoided the worst of the damage, along with a death of such intense blunt force trauma that it would leave little left of him, he didn't get out of it completely unscathed, and the machine fell on his legs, thankfully just below his hips so he wouldn't be completely unable to function.

Of course, what with the acute pain he was feeling, his biggest concern was not how he was going to make it through the rest of trials right now, or really anything involving the future. He was trapped in the moment, and this moment was absolute dogshit. 

Past the white-hot agony that he was going through right now, Taako heard only a couple of things past the buzzing in his ears, all equally concerning. He heard the sound of people arguing, he heard several distant pops and cracks, and someone was screaming. The screams began to choke out and as Taako realized where the screams were coming from, he threw up on the dusty concrete floor, his body overwhelmed by pain and doing everything it knew to relive it. He shivered, the smell of his own sick nearly making him retch again, although it was mostly bile after not having eaten in several days, the smell reminding him of his college stints.

Distantly, Taako hears the door leading to the next room slide open, and through his pain addled mind, hot rage flares up. Was this how he was supposed to solve this stupid fucking puzzle? Mortally wound himself? 

He wants to curse out the bastards who put him here, but he still can't seem to regain control of his vocal cords past the occasional gasp or retch. The next sound he hears is horribly familiar, and whatever fury he has left rears its head at the people in the hologram that has just been projected. 

He lifts his head weakly to look at the sheepish twins, and Taako, although he is having a hard time thinking, notices that Sazed is no longer accompanying them. Taako regains control of his voice just long enough convey the biggest concern on his mind at the moment. 

"Why?" He rasps out, and Edward laughs a little, scratching the back of his neck as if he was a child who had been caught trying to sneak an extra helping of dessert, and his nonchalance inspires a fire in Taako that encourages him to get to his feet, but he is still too weak, and the machine is still far too heavy to even lift his head off of the vomit-covered ground under his feet.   
"Well, you have to understand, Taako," Lydia begins, and at only her first words Taako can't wait to be out from under the machine so he can kick her condescending ass. "Our intention was not to injure you so greatly with this challenge, we meant for you to jump across the hanging machinery as some sort of cool parkour, and sometimes the machines would drop out from under you, providing an extra challenge that we knew you could handle! Unfortunately... you missed the ladder leading up to the real challenge, and Sazed grew... impatient with you. So when you walked under the washing machine, he pulled the lever that would drop it onto you. Sort of creating his own mini-challenge!" 

Taako's rage only deepens upon hearing her explanation, for the twins, for this stupid Wonderland, for Sazed. Along with his tumultuous fury, Taako also feels his regrets for ever involving himself with Sazed run deeper into his body, filling his now-broken bones.   
The washing machine slowly lifts off his legs, reliving the horrible pressure, but still making Taako cry out in horror at the pain he felt as his shattered legs shifted their positions, even slightly. The intense pain thankfully drives him into unconsciousness before he can make any more attempts to move forward. 

000

When Taako wakes, he is given the illusion of the passage of time, as the lights in the horrific Elm-Street-rip-off-boiler-room have been turned off, probably to prevent a headache that would make him pass out again and delay the Wonder Twin's puzzle. 

Taako begins dragging himself out of the way of the machinery that is still at risk of falling on him at any time, and towards the now-open door.   
The thought of moving onwards was... sickening, but he didn't really have a choice if it meant getting back home. So he dragged himself, hissing and spitting, out of the door, and flipped off the open air when he heard Edward's voice exclaim: "Well think about it this way; at least you don't have to do the puzzle any more!" 

000

Taako knows something is wrong when he feels cool, stale air on his face, instead of the still, stifling, dusty air that he had been breathing for however long he had been here. He looks up and, for a moment, dread overtakes him. This isn't a room. 

Its a FUCKING LABYRINTH! 

His hands shake against the frigid cement of the dark halls. He begins dragging himself, already anticipating concrete burns on his entire body for this 'challenge’.

"Where do you assholes get the money for this shit!?" Taako shrieks in indignation. 

000

After a grueling twenty-four hours straight of looking for the flaming wreckage of the Wonder Twins' getaway vehicle, Angus manages to track it down, much to the excitement of the other members of the kind-of-but-not-really-illegal rescue team. Of course, when Angus expressed his joy for the completion of this exhausting work, including a lament of how long it had taken to find the stupid thing, he was pulled aside by his father and was given a stern lecture that if he didn't start taking care of himself better while he helped, then he wouldn't be allowed to help at all, and he would go to stay with his Grandma Raven until they found Taako and had the Wonder Twins in jail. 

Angus agreed to his father's demands, however begrudgingly, if only to soothe his father's guilt for not noticing how tired Angus had been. While normally his dad's lack of attentiveness would upset him, Angus knew that it wasn't his dad's fault.

This was a stressful situation for all of them, and Kravitz was the only one with a (relatively) cool head on his shoulders along with a connection to the police force, so he had the rather hefty job of trying to smooth things out with the Eversummer Police Department along with keeping them from finding out that they were taking the investigation into their own hands. 

Besides that, his dad being busy with the police worked in his favor so that he could put all his energy into helping Taako's family with the investigation. But mostly, Angus is far from a stupid kid, and although he has a more difficult time understanding other people's emotions than others, he can see quite clearly that his dad has a crush on Taako, or at least whatever the adult equivalent of a crush is. 

000

It takes another few hours, but they eventually are able to track where the second getaway vehicle went, mostly from the help of a couple of people who Magnus and Merle called, strangely vaguely, 'old friends'.   
The 'old friends' turned out to be two women who were experts on apparently anything with a motor. They scolded the others for not inviting them over to help sooner and then got to work investigating the tire treads left behind by the getaway vehicle. 

A couple of hours of analysis later and they have tracked the treads to a series of warehouses that have recently all been bought up and modified to be interconnected. Everyone celebrates this new development for a good few minutes before everyone sits down around the kitchen table, most having to squish together or kneel on the floor in place of a chair, as the table was built for four people. Once everyone manages to find their place among everyone who has been looking for this information for what seems like forever, they begin to talk through the plans that have been, even subconsciously, brainstormed since the first police report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeyyy! Leave a comment if you liked this or have a question or anything. Love ya

**Author's Note:**

> shut up kravitz is a hellicoptor parent bc i said so. anyway thanks for reading leave a comment if you liked it i cant survive without praise


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